ROBGRT-COLLYeR 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 


Miss     Nancy  Davidson 


SOME 
MEMORIES 

BY 

ROBERT  COLLYER 

ER!K!S! 

HVERITATIS 

r^^E^l^gS^ 

BOSTON 
AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION 

25  BEACON  STREET 

PRINTED  IK  U.  S.  A. 


To 

my  dear  friend  through  all  the  years 
of  my  life  in  New  York 

HENRY  HUDDLESTON  ROGERS 


FOREWORD 

rflHESE  memories  were  written  for  The  Chris- 
-*•  tian  Register,  and  ran  through  twenty-nine 
numbers,  from  December,  1903  to  April,  1904. 
Many  friends  had  suggested  in  the  later  years 
that  I  should  write  some  memoirs  of  my  life  and 
print  them,  or  leave  them  in  the  care  of  my  chil- 
dren to  be  printed  after  my  death.  I  did  not 
favor  the  idea.  But  when  I  came  to  the  eightieth 
mile-stone  of  my  pilgrimage,  there  was  such  an 
outpouring  of  greetings  and  congratulations 
from  the  Church  of  the  Messiah,  the  sister 
churches  and  ministers,  and  from  friends  far  and 
wide  in  my  motherland  and  my  homeland  these 
fifty-eight  years,  that  my  heart  was  moved  to 
do  something  in  this  sort,  and  it  was  done,  not 
as  memoirs  —  these  I  could  not  attempt  —  but 
as  "  some  memories." 

May  I  say  also  that  they  stole  out  from  the 
mists  of  time  by  no  effort  of  memory,  but  as  if 
they  had  been  waiting  for  those  quiet  mornings 
when  they  were  written,  I  dare  not  say  by  in- 
spiration from  on  High,  but  will  say  the  inspira- 


FOREWORD 


tion  of  a  grateful  heart.  I  remember  when  my 
children  were  in  their  early  "  teens,"  and  would 
bring  me  to  book  now  and  then,  as  the  little 
maid  in  the  memories  caught  me  about  the  pan  of 
milk.  My  small  son,  who  must  have  been  turn- 
ing over  a  sermon  on  my  desk,  said  to  me, 
"  Papa,  do  you  write  your  sermons  by  what  you 
call  inspiration  ?  "  I  answered,  "  I  hope  so,  my 
son ;  "  and  then  he  said,  "  Why  do  you  cross  so 
much  out?  "  He  had  caught  me  in  a  net  and  I 
had  not  the  mother  wit  to  answer.  There  may 
be  an  inspiration  to  cross  out  as  true  as  the  in- 
spiration to  let  the  rest  stay  on  the  paper.  And 
now  I  love  to  remember  these  memories  ran  clear 
from  the  first  number  to  the  last.  There  was  no 
"  crossing  out."  They  were  so  interwoven  with 
my  life  through  the  fifty  years  they  touch  the 
sunshine  and  shadows,  the  sorrows  and  the  joy. 

ROBERT  COLLYER. 


SOME   MEMORIES 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  was  born  on  the  8th  of  December,  1823. 
My  father  was  born  in  the  same  year  and  on 
the  same  day  as  the  Emperor  William  of 
Prussia.  My  grandfather  Robert  was  a  sailor 
in  Nelson's  fleet,  and  my  father  would  tell  me 
how  he  sat  on  his  shoulder  to  see  the  procession 
when  they  brought  the  body  of  the  great  ad- 
miral up  the  Thames  for  burial  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  in  London.  This  sailor  man  is  the 
earliest  ancestor  on  that  side  the  house  I  can 
lay  my  hands  on.  He  went  to  sea  again  very 
soon  after  Nelson's  burial  and  was  lost  over- 
board in  a  storm;  and  my  grandmother  died 
soon  after,  leaving  her  family  of,  I  think,  five 
children  who  were  taken  to  an  asylum  in  the 
city  of  London  for  shelter  and  nurture.  My 
mother's  father  was  also  a  sailor.  His  port 
was  Yarmouth,  but  the  family  lived  in  Nor- 
wich. He  was  also  the  earliest  ancestor  we  can 


SOME  MEMORIES 


find  on  that  side  of  the  house.  His  name  was 
Thomas  Norman,  and  we  take  a  touch  of  pride 
in  our  "  Norman  blood  "  and  imagine  we  also 
may  have  come  over  with  the  Conqueror.  He 
was  lost  at  sea,  and  not  long  after  his  family  of 
four  children  were  left  orphans  and  taken  to 
an  asylum  in  Norwich.  So  we  have  no  family 
tree  to  speak  of,  only  this  low  bush. 

Very  early  in  the  last  century  there  was  an 
urgent  need  for  children  to  work  in  the  fac- 
tories they  were  building  then  on  all  the 
streams  they  could  find  fit  for  their  purpose  in 
the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire.  The  local  sup- 
ply of  "  help  "  could  not  begin  to  meet  the  de- 
mand; and  so  the  owners  of  the  factories  went 
or  sent  south  to  scour  the  asylums  where  chil- 
dren were  to  be  found  in  swarms,  to  bring  them 
north  and  set  them  to  work  as  apprentices,  who 
must  be  duly  housed,  fed,  and  clothed  until  the 
girls  were  eighteen  and  the  boys  twenty-one. 
They  must  also  be  taught  the  three  R's  and  the 
boys  some  craft  by  which  they  might  earn 
their  living  when  they  were  free.  They  found 
my  father  with  some  more  in  the  asylum  and 
carried  them  north  to  work  in  a  factory  on  a 
stream  called  the  Washburn  and  in  the  parish 
of  Fewston.  He  told  me  they  gave  him  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


free  choice  to  go  or  stay  and  wanted  him  to 
stay ;  but  he  said,  "  I  will  go."  And  so  it  was 
he  went  out,  not  knowing  whither  he  went,  was 
bound  apprentice,  and  served  his  time  first  at 
the  spinning-frames  and  then  in  the  forge,  for 
this  was  his  choice  of  a  handicraft.  But  here  I 
touch  a  bit  of  romance.  A  few  years  ago  when 
I  was  over  in  England  I  went  on  a  visit  to  an 
old  friend  in  Surrey  who  said  to  me  one  day: 
"  Here  is  an  invitation  from  Esquire  Ellis,  a 
good  Unitarian,  to  come  and  drink  tea  with 
him.  He  is  far  on  in  years  and  lives  in  a  fine 
old  manor  house.  You  will  like  to  see  where, 
as  the  tradition  runs,  Queen  Elizabeth  stayed 
once  over  night." 

I  was  glad  to  go,  had  a  very  pleasant  visit. 
And  as  we  sat  on  the  lawn  under  a  grand  old 
tree,  chatting  of  many  things,  my  good  host 
said :  "  I  have  been  told,  sir,  by  your  friend 
that  you  emigrated  from  Yorkshire  to  the 
United  States.  My  family  came  south  from 
Yorkshire  many  years  ago  where  my  father  was 
partner  in  a  linen  factory.  The  firm  was  Col- 
beck  &  Ellis :  the  factory  was  in  Fewston.  You 
may  have  heard  of  the  place."  "  Yes,"  I 
answered.  "  I  worked  in  that  factory,  sir, 
seven  years  in  my  boyhood.  My  father  was 
[  3  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  smith  there  and  worked  in  the  factory, 
boy  and  man,  thirty-two  years.  He  was 
brought  down  from  London  and  was  bound 
apprentice  to  your  father  and  Mr.  Colbeck,  I 
think  it  was  in  1807."  So  there  we  sat,  the 
sons  of  the  master  and  apprentice,  after  eighty 
years,  with  a  good  warm  grip  of  the  hands. 

I  have  said  my  mother  was  also  an  orphan  in 
the  ancient  city  of  Norwich  where  the  agents 
found  her  and  brought  her  north  to  work  as  an 
apprentice  in  the  same  factory,  and  I  think  in 
the  same  year.  So  the  lassie  and  laddie  grew 
up  together,  each  in  their  own  'prentice  house, 
to  manhood  and  womanhood.  They  were  of 
about  the  same  age,  and  it  came  to  pass  in  due 
time  that  they  fell  in  love  with  each  other  and 
were  married  by  the  good  parson  of  the  town  at 
his  church  two  miles  away.  And  many  a  time 
my  mother  told  us  in  a  gust  of  glee  how  they 
had  to  walk  there  and  back  again  through  the 
January  snow-drifts  which  were  so  high  in  spots 
that  they  were  obliged  to  walk  on  the  top  of 
the  stone  walls. 

I  was  their  first-born.  My  father  was  work- 
ing at  the  anvil  in  Keighley  through  the  year 
after  the  wedding,  so  I  was  born  there;  but 
they  offered  him  higher  wages  to  return  to  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


old  place.  So  they  would  tell  me  how  they  car- 
ried me  in  their  arms  over  the  moors  when  I 
was  a  month  old  and  went  at  once  to  keeping 
house.  And  there  I  find  myself  when  I  begin 
"  to  learn  the  use  of  I  and  me  "  in  a  cottage  of 
two  rooms  and  an  attic,  the  windows  looking 
right  into  the  sun's  eye  over  the  valley  and 
westward  to  the  moors,  and  before  the  cottage  a 
bit  of  greensward  with  a  rose  bush  in  the  centre 
which  bears  a  great  wealth  of  roses  (I  held  one 
to  my  face  the  other  Sunday,  and  the  perfume 
spanned  the  chasm  for  me  of  more  than  seventy 
years)  and  a  plum-tree  that  gave  me  a  good  deal 
of  trouble  in  those  days  because  the  fruit  in 
the  summer  never  began  to  make  good  the 
promise  of  the  blossom  in  the  spring. 

Sir  David  Brewster  brought  a  crystal  to  a 
meeting  of  savcms  which  held  in  its  substance 
a  landscape  taken  aeons  ago  by  the  sun.     The 
picture  was  clear  while  you  kept  it  in  the  dark, 
but  began  to  fade  exposed  to  the  light.     So 
the  picture  of  my  first  home  is  a  photograph 
and  steals  out  sharp  and  clear  through  the  mys- 
tery of  remembrance.     For  now  I  go  indoors 
\  where  there  are  three  and  then  five  children  sit- 
j  ting  about  a  bright  open  fire.     The  walls  of  the 
I  living-room  seem  to  be  white  as  snow ;  and  there 
[  5  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


is  a  bureau  of  mahogany  that  shines  like  a  dim 
mirror  through  much  polishing  with  what  my 
mother  called  "  elbow  grease "  over  beeswax 
and  turpentine,  and  chairs  for  the  company, — 
but  we  sit  on  stools, —  a  tall  clock  which  was 
always  too  fast  for  me  at  bedtime  and  too 
slow  at  meal-times,  some  pottery  of  the  fine 
old  willow  pattern  in  a  rack  over  the  bureau 
(held  sacred  for  Christmas  and  the  village  feast 
which  fell  in  summer),  and  pictures  Rubens 
could  not  have  painted  to  save  him.  There  was 
also  clean  linen  and  soft  calico  to  wear  next  the 
body  and  to  sleep  in,  and  once  a  week  —  when 
we  were  old  enough  —  a  good,  sound  scrubbing 
in  a  tub  with  yellow  soap  that  got  into  your 
eyes  and  a  rough  harden  towel  to  dry  us  down. 
The  wise  man  says  in  the  Bible :  "  Who  hath 
red  eyes?  Who  hath  contention?  Who  hath 
strife?  "  I  can  answer  truly  we  had  all  these 
on  the  Saturday  night  when  we  were  turned  into 
that  tub. 

My  dear  good  father's  wages  were  about  $4.50 
a  week  in  our  American  tenor,  and  this  was  the 
whole  income  until  we  were  old  enough  to  help 
earn  the  living  in  the  factory;  but  my  mother 
made  this  income  stand  good  for  plenty  to  eat 
and  drink,  two  suits  of  clothes  (one  for  week- 

[  6] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


days  and  one  for  Sundays),  house-rent,  and 
fire-elding,  and  whatever  we  needed  besides. 
And  for  food  we  had  oatmeal  porridge  and 
skim-milk  morning  and  night,  with  oat  cake 
to  fill  in ;  a  bit  of  meat  usually  for  dinner,  soup 
and  potatoes,  dumplings  now  and  then  of  a  fine 
staying  power,  and  for  a  treat 

"  Stick-jaw  pudding  that  tires  your  chin 

With  —  whatever  it  was  —  spread  ever  so  thin ;  " 

white  bread  always,  with  a  film  of  butter  on 
Sunday  afternoon,  and  tea  of  the  brand  we  call 
cambric.  There  were  variations  of  course,  but 
this  was  the  rule.  And  I  touch  these  mem- 
ories because  I  believe  in  that  fair  sweet  linen 
and  the  tub,  the  white  purity  of  fresh  lime 
laid  on  the  walls  every  year  with  my  mother's 
own  hands,  and  in  the  food  she  gave  us  lies  one 
momentous  reason,  if  no  more,  for  the 
verity  that  we  children  grew  up  healthy  and 
strong,  living  to  a  good  old  age;  while  I  my- 
self have  never  been  one  day  sick  in  my  bed  in 
these  fourscore  years  or  so  far  as  I  can  remem- 
ber had  my  breakfast  there.  We  went  to  Sun- 
day-school twice  every  Sunday,  with  no  re- 
wards and  no  picnics ;  and  I  really  know  of  noth- 
ing in  my  boyhood  outside  my  good  home  train- 

[-7  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ing  which  can  compare  in  pure  worth  to  my 
teaching  through  seven  years  in  that  good 
orthodox  Sunday-school.  Or  when  I  ask  how 
it  has  come  to  pass  that  I  have  "  wagged  my 
pow  in  a  poopit "  in  some  sort  these  fifty-five 
years,  and  through  forty-four  years  in  the 
churches  of  our  faith,  my  good  home  training, 
I  say.  For  my  father  and  mother  made  no 
"  profession "  of  religion,  but  they  held  our 
home  so  sacred  that  I  cannot  remember  one 
profane  word  passing  their  lips  or  ours;  while 
the  instinct  lay  so  deep  in  my  own  nature  that, 
when  I  became  a  preacher  and  might  make 
them  "  tell "  in  a  sermon,  I  still  shrink  from 
the  words  "devil,"  "hell,"  and  "damnation." 

Our  birthright  lay  in  the  old  parish  church 
where  my  father  and  mother  were  married,  and 
the  children  were  all  baptized  by  our  good  par- 
son Ramshaw ;  but  we  only  went  there  at  Easter 
and  Whitsuntide.  The  rest  of  the  year  we  went 
to  the  small  dissenting  chapel  on  the  hill.  But 
the  great  holiday  and  festival  in  our  home  was 
Christmas,  when  we  held  a  very  carnival  of 
good  cheer. 

It  is  true  that  as  the  festival  drew  near  fear 
was  not  seldom  blended  with  hope  for  us.  We 
were  never  well-to-do,  there  were  so  many  of  us 

[  8  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  our  income  was  so  small.  So  I  can  still 
see  my  mother  sitting  by  the  fire  with  a  far- 
away look  in  her  good  gray  eyes  as  we  would  talk 
about  the  coming  festival,  and  can  still  hear  her 
saying,  "  I  fear  we  shall  have  no  Christmas  this 
year,  *  childer,'  things  are  so  dear."  And  then 
life  would  seem  to  us  not  worth  living.  Still 
this  was  always,  I  think,  a  false  alarm.  The 
wolf  never  came  so  near  the  door  as  to  devour 
our  Christmas.  The  brave  eyes  would  brighten 
and  the  able  head  begin  to  plan.  There  would 
be  a  bit  of  malt  from  the  malster.  This  was 
the  first  move.  Then  the  yule-cakes  and  the 
loaf  would  be  made.  How  good  they  do  smell 
still  in  the  baking!  And  the  cheese  would  be 
bought, —  a  small  one,  but  always  a  whole 
cheese, —  a  bit  of  beef  for  the  roast.  We 
never  attained  to  the  splendor  of  a  goose  and 
the  things  for  the  plum  pudding,  but  we  never 
stoned  the  raisins. 

Meanwhile  up  the  stream  at  Thurscross  — 
Thor's  cross  —  the  singers  and  the  players  on 
divers  instruments  had  been  busy  for  weeks  pre- 
paring the  Christmas  carols;  for  they  were 
musical  up  in  the  glen  and  had  sung  once  in 
an  oratorio,  so  it  was  said.  And  on  Christmas 
morning,  long  before  it  was  day,  they  would 

[  9  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


come  down  through  the  snow  and  sing  for  their 
first  number  the  fine  old  hymn, — 

"  While  shepherds  watched  their  flocks  by  night, 

All  seated  on  the  ground, 
The  angel  of  the  Lord  came  down 
And  glory  shone  around." 

(My  old  eyes  grow  dim  as  I  listen  to  the  music 
and  the  singing  after  all  these  years.)  And  we 
would  rise  in  haste.  The  yule-log  would  be 
turned,  the  great  candles  lighted,  the  small  bar- 
rel tapped,  the  yule-loaf  and  cheese  set  out. 
Largess  would  be  given,  with  good  wishes  all 
round  and  the  invitation  to  come  again  when 
Christmas  came  round.  And  along  through  the 
day  the  poor  creatures  would  come  with  their 
carols, —  God's  poor.  I  have  heard  brave 
music  and  singing  in  all  these  years,  the  best 
there  is;  but  as  I  sit  here  and  listen  to  two  of 
these  I  think  I  have  never  heard  any  singing  be- 
sides so  near  the  heart.  It  was  the  gift  of  God 
to  His  poor  and  was  saved  for  Christmas.  It 
was  seldom  you  heard  them  at  other  times,  but 
then  it  seemed  as  if  they  had  listened  to  the 
angels.  They  knew  nothing  of  music,  but  the 
charm  was  in  the  heart  and  they  sang.  They 
were  very  old  carols,  never  rising  as  I  hear  them 
[  10  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


now  so  far  away  above  some  minor  key.  And 
this  once  in  the  year,  if  never  again,  they  did 
eat  and  were  satisfied  as  they  went  from  house 
to  house  and  closed  their  carols  always  with  the 
same  old  strain, — 

"  God  bless  the  master  of  this  house, 

The  misteriss  also, 
And  all  the  little  children 
That  round  the  table  go." 

The  Christmas  tides  in  my  early  life  were  all 
in  the  homes.  There  were  no  festivals  in  the 
churches,  no  gifts  from  the  altar,  no  doles  for 
us  from  dead  hands,  and  no  sermons  save  when 
the  day  fell  on  Sunday.  It  was  just  Christmas, 
but  so  full  of  joy  for  young  and  old,  so  warm 
from  the  yule-fires  and  so  fragrant  with  good 
cheer,  that  I  wonder  whether  we  have  not  lost 
track  of  something  even  in  the  great  and  gen- 
erous bounty  we  pour  out  now, —  something  of 
the  Home  Christmas. 


II 


I  must  lose  no  time  about  getting  my  educa- 
tion, so  I  was  sent  to  a  dame  school  near  at  hand. 
But  after  a  while  the  dame  set  me  to  do  things 
I  loved  better  than  my  lessons,  and  when  this 
came  out  there  was  trouble.  My  mother  was 
not  willing  to  have  me  work  my  passage  and 
pay  my  school  wage  too.  So  she  took  me  away, 
but  not  before  I  had  learned  one  art  at  which  I 
became  a  master,  or  so  said  the  dame, —  the  way 
to  scrape  new  potatoes.  You  take  them  out  of 
fair  water  and  remove  the  thin  silken  skin  with 
your  thumb.  Then  I  went  to  a  master's  school 
half  a  mile  away.  He  made  me  stick  to  my 
tasks  in  which  I  made  some  headway,  while  one 
little  incident  gives  me  a  hint  of  my  progress.  I 
was  in  a  temper;  he  must  have  scolded  me.  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  he  should  see  what  I 
could  do.  One  word  on  my  battledore  caught 
my  eye,  the  word  "  good," —  one  letter  more 
than  the  rest  on  the  line.  I  wrestled  with  that 
word  amain,  stood  up  by  the  desk,  and  spelled 
it  out, —  good,  God !  He  gave  me  a  small  crack 
[  12] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


with  the  middle  finger  on  the  top  of  my  head 
as  my  mother  would  with  her  thimble.  His 
finger  was  hard  as  bone  through  much  usage  in 
this  kind,  and  I  never  forgot  the  tap.  The 
school  was  closed,  the  master  went  away,  and  I 
was  old  enough  then  to  walk  to  another  two  miles 
away  near  the  old  church  at  Fewston  where  I 
was  baptized.  This  was  a  good  school,  and 
Master  Hardie  was  a  good  teacher,  but  was 
somewhat  given  to  searching  for  the  springs  of 
what  the  elder  English  calls  the  humanities  in 
the  backward  boys,  as  those  who  have  "  the 
gift  "  search  for  springs  of  water  on  the  prairies 
with  a  hazel  rod;  and  I  think  I  was  a  back- 
ward boy.  Still  he  lifted  me  along,  doing  his 
best  for  me;  and  some  three  years  after  this, 
when  I  was  at  work  in  the  factory,  he  held  a 
night  school  in  our  hamlet.  I  went  there  one 
winter  and  made  good  progress,  climbing  up- 
ward in  figures  to  the  rule  of  three.  I  went  to 
a  night  school  another  winter  after  I  left  home 
to  learn  my  craft,  and  this  ends  the  story  of 
my  education  in  the  schools. 

Now  I  must  return  on  my  way  to  touch  an 
incident  which  holds  for  me  a  pregnant  mean- 
ing, as  I  glance  backward  to  my  childhood. 
The  memory  comes  clear  as  if  it  was  yesterday, 


SOME  MEMORIES 


of  a  happy  day  when  some  good  soul  had  given 
me  a  big  George  the  Third  penny,  and  I  must 
needs  go  and  spend  it  forthwith,  or,  as  my 
mother  used  to  say,  it  would  burn  a  hole  in  my 
pocket.  There  was  only  one  store  in  our  ham- 
let, and  there  I  must  go.  I  had  quite  made  up 
my  mind  what  I  would  buy.  I  dearly  loved 
what  we  call  candy, —  do  still ;  and  there  it  was, 
the  sort  I  would  buy,  in  the  window.  But 
close  to  the  jar  there  was  a  tiny  book,  and 
I  can  still  read  the  title  "  The  History  of 
Whittington  and  his  Cat.  William  Walker, 
Printer."  Price,  one  penny.  I  gave  up  the 
candy  and  bought  the  book.  And  now  when  I 
am  in  London  and  go  up  Highgate  Hill  to  see 
a  dear  friend,  I  always  halt  to  look  at  the  stone 
on  which  the  small  boy  sat  when  the  bells  rang 
him  back  again  to  become  lord  mayor  of  Lon- 
don. 

Does  some  reader  say,  Why  should  you 
touch  this  incident?  And  I  answer,  I  have  a 
library  now  of  about  three  thousand  volumes, 
and  in  all  these  years  have  had  to  forego  a 
sight  of  "  candy  "  in  many  guises  to  get  them ; 
but  in  that  first  purchase  lay  the  spark  of  a 
fire  which  has  not  yet  gone  down  to  white  ashes, 
the  passion  which  grew  with  my  growth  to  read 


SOME  MEMORIES 


all  the  books  in  the  early  years  I  could  lay  my 
hands  on,  and  in  this  wise  prepare  me  in  some 
fashion  for  the  work  I  must  do  in  the  ministry. 
Seventy-two  years  ago  last  summer  the  bell 
tapped  for  me  to  go  to  work  in  the  factory 
where  my  father  and  mother  had  served  their 
time.  It  is  told  of  the  younger  Pitt  that,  in 
looking  round  for  more  earners  and  still  more 
to  meet  the  demands  for  more  money  and  still 
more  to  carry  on  the  war  with  Napoleon,  the 
great  statesman  said,  "  We  must  yoke  up  the 
children  to  work  in  the  factories."  And  this 
was  done.  I  cannot  vouch  for  the  story;  but 
there  I  was  at  work  in  the  factory,  with  many 
more  children  of  about  my  age  or  older,  stand- 
ing at  the  spinning-frames  — "  doffers  "  they 
called  us  —  thirteen  hours  a  day  five  days  in  the 
week,  and  eleven  on  the  Saturday  —  rung  in 
at  six  in  the  morning  and  out  at  eight  in  the 
evening,  with  an  hour  for  dinner  and  a  rest. 
And,  if  we  got  a  chance  to  sit  down  for  a  few 
moments  when  the  overlooker  was  not  round  with 
his  leathern  strap  to  lay  on  our  small  shoulders, 
we  were  in  luck,  while  for  protection  we  invented 
a  code  of  signals  to  warn  each  other  when  he 
was  coming  our  way;  and  the  result  of  this 
was  that  the  weaker  children  were  so  crippled 


SOME  MEMORIES 


that  the  memory  of  their  crooked  limbs  still 
casts  a  rather  sinister  light  for  me  on  the  scrip- 
ture, "  The  Lord  regardeth  not  the  legs  of  a 
man."  It  was  in  1831-32  I  went  to  work  on 
these  terms,  but  in  1834  the  burden  was  lifted 
by  the  Factory  Act  which  barred  out  the  chil- 
dren under  nine  years  of  age,  while  those  over 
nine  but  under  eleven  must  work  no  more  than 
nine  hours  a  day  and  at  thirteen  could  work  the 
full  stint.  This  gave  me  a  fine  breathing  space 
of  about  two  years,  and  then  I  took  the  full 
stint  with  no  harm;  for  the  foundations  were 
strong.  Also  in  the  hardest  times  the  dear 
mother  looked  after  me  and  the  whole  brood. 
The  home  was  bright  always  when  the  day's 
work  was  done,  and  replete  with  all  the  good 
cheer  her  heart  could  compass  for  us.  There 
was  quite  the  minimum  of  "  Thou  shalt  nots  " 
in  her  tables  of  the  law.  She  gave  us  our 
heads  and  held  on  to  our  hearts,  and  all  was 
well.  Dr.  Bellows  was  introduced  to  her  on  his 
last  visit  to  England.  She  was  then  far  on  in 
years,  and  the  first  time  I  met  him  after  his 
return  he  said  to  me,  "  I  know  where  you  got 
your  outfit:  I  saw  your  mother  in  Leeds." 

On  my  first  visit  to  the  motherland  fifteen 
years  after  I  came  to  this  new  world,  I  went  to 
[  16] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


look  at  the  old  factory  and  wandered  about  as 
one  that  dreams.  I  saw  in  one  of  the  great 
dusty  rooms  a  little  fellow  about  eight  years  old, 
but  big  and  strong  for  his  years,  standing  at 
the  spinning-frames  through  thirteen  hours, 
tired  sometimes  almost  to  death,  and  then  again 
not  tired  at  all,  rushing  home  when  the  day's 
work  was  done  —  if  it  was  winter  to  some  treas- 
ure of  a  book;  and  if  it  was  summer,  with  the 
long  twilights,  the  books  would  be  perhaps 
neglected,  and  the  rush  would  be  out  into  the 
fields  and  lanes  and  down  by  the  river,  hunting 
in  the  early  summer  for  birds'  nests  the  tender 
and  holy  home  canon  would  never  permit  to  be 
robbed;  and  in  the  later  summer  seeing  how  the 
sloes,  the  crab-apples,  and  the  hazel  nuts  fared, 
and  what  was  the  prospect  for  hips  and  haws. 

I  watched  him  in  my  day  dream  with  a  most 
pathetic  interest.  Dear  old  fellow,  I  said,  you 
had  a  hard  time;  but  then  it  was  a  good  time, 
too,  wasn't  it  now?  How  good  the  bread  and 
butter  did  taste,  to  be  sure,  on  Sundays,  when 
half  a  pound  a  week  was  all  your  mother  could 
afford!  And  did  any  flowers  in  this  world 
smell  as  sweet  as  those  old  roses  and  the 
primrose,  or  prima  donna  sing  like  the  skylark 
and  the  throstle!  For  you  money  cannot  buy 


SOME  MEMORIES 


such  a  Christmas  pudding  or  prayers  and  tears 
such  a  Christmas-tide  as  mother  made  and  the 
Lord  gave  when  you  and  the  world  were  young. 
I  had  lost  sight  of  you  all  these  years  and  have 
never  set  eyes  on  you  until  to-day,  you  dear 
little  other  self  who  was  dead  and  is  alive  again, 
was  lost  and  is  found! 

One  thing  more  I  must  touch  before  I  leave 
these  memories  of  the  factory.  I  said  the  quite 
infernal  factory  bell  began  to  clang  through  the 
valley  at  half-past  five  in  the  morning,  before, 
as  I  was  sure,  I  had  been  asleep  an  hour,  so  tired 
I  was  and  so  sure  also  that  in  all  the  world  there 
could  be  no  bell  so  harsh  and  evil  in  sound. 
Some  years  after  our  family  moved  to  Leeds 
the  factory  fell  on  evil  days  and  was  dead. 
Then  about  1870  the  great  city  of  Leeds  must 
have  more  pure  water,  and  bought  the  water 
rights  to  the  Washburn  with  much  land  in  the 
valley  for  reservoirs,  including  the  site  of  the 
factory  which  must  come  down.  When  I  read 
of  this  in  my  Leeds  Mercury,  I  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  the  Common  Council,  asking  him  to 
send  me  a  bit  of  the  old  bell  when  it  was  broken 
up.  I  wanted  to  hammer  it  as  Quilp  in  the 
story  hammered  the  figure  head  to  blow  off  his 
wrath.  I  received  for  my  answer  the  bell 
[  18  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sound  and  whole,  laid  down  in  the  hall  of  our 
house,  carriage  paid  to  the  door.  But  the  dear 
house  mother,  who  did  not  share  my  memories, 
did  not  want  it  cumbering  the  hall  even  when  I 
suggested  we  might  use  it  as  a  sort  of  Chinese 
gong  to  call  us  in  the  morning  and  to  our 
meals.  We  could  use  a  hammer  and  cover  the 
head  with  leather,  I  insinuated.  This  would 
make  a  nice  soft  murmur.  But  mother  would 
not  hear  me.  I  must  get  rid  of  that  bell  or  she 
would.  It  was  an  elephant  in  the  house. 

It  has  been  my  happy  fortune  for  more  than 
twenty  years  to  take  the  services  and  sermons 
once  a  year  in  Sage  Chapel  at  the  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, and,  talking  that  year  with  President 
Adams  about  the  training  school  for  smiths' 
and  carpenters'  work,  the  thought  flashed  on 
me  that  I  might  foist  the  bell  on  the  university 
and  have  it  hung  over  the  shops.  The  good 
fellow  caught  the  idea  with  pleasure,  though  I 
told  him  honestly  what  an  evil  clamor  it  made 
for  me  all  those  years  ago.  "  Send  it  up,"  he 
said,  "  and  we  will  run  our  risk.  It  may  be  the 
clamor  was  in  the  hearing  and  not  in  the  bell." 
So  it  was  duly  sent,  and  when  I  went  up  the 
next  year  he  said :  "  The  bell  is  hung,  but  has 
not  been  rung.  We  want  you  to  strike  the  first 

r  19 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sounds.  So  come  right  along  and  ring  your 
bell."  I  rang  it  with  a  touch  of  tremor,  and 
it  seemed  to  be  quite  another  bell;  for  it  gave 
forth  a  pleasant  sound.  The  president  was 
right.  The  clamor  was  in  my  hearing  when  it 
would  storm  me  out  of  what  we  call  my  first 
sleep.  I  cannot  remember  any  second  in  those 
days,  only  one,  and  that  all  too  brief. 

I  think  it  is  Evelyn  who  says :  "  Being  in 
Antwerp,  I  stood  in  the  bell  chamber  while  the 
bells  were  ringing,  and  the  noise  was  full  of 
dissonance  and  distraction.  But  the  next 
morning  I  walked  forth  from  the  city  when 
they  rang  again,  and  they  were  full  of  sweet 
harmonies."  So  the  enchantment  of  time  and 
distance,  with  all  the  good  fortune  which  had 
come  to  me  in  the  many  years,  had  changed  the 
clamor  to  this  pleasant  sound;  and  here  ends 
the  tale  of  my  life  in  the  factory. 


in 


There  was  one  article  in  our  home  creed  that 
would  admit  of  no  doubt  or  denial:  the  boys 
must  learn  some  craft  better  than  those  we  were 
taught  in  the  factory,  and  this  would  cost 
money,  because  they  must  find  us  in  clothes 
through  our  apprenticeship,  when  we  had  no 
wages.  But  this  made  no  matter,  when  the 
time  came  for  me  to  leave  home  sixty-five  years 
ago  last  August.  If  I  stayed  on  in  the  fac- 
tory, this  would  be  a  step  down  from  the  rank 
my  father  had  attained  as  a  smith.  So  it  was 
ordained  by  the  fireside  council,  of  which  I  was 
a  member,  that  I  should  be  a  smith  too,  and  the 
money  to  clothe  me  would  be  found  somehow, 
while  my  mother  would  stand  true  to  her  colors 
and  her  counsel, — "  Childer,  no  matter  how 
poor  you  be,  when  you  have  to  do  for  your- 
selves, don't  look  poor  and  don't  tell."  The 
smith  who  had  taught  my  father  was  still  living, 
and  kept  his  forge  in  Ilkley,  six  miles  away  over 
the  moor,  and  he  agreed  to  take  me  as  an  ap- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


prentice.  I  was  then  turned  fourteen  and  was 
bound  until  I  was  twenty-one,  he  giving  me 
house  room  and  food,  week  day  shirts  and 
leathern  aprons.  So  in  this  way  I  came  to  work 
at  the  anvil,  the  utmost  limit  then  and  for  many 
a  year  after  of  my  ambition. 

And  the  change  was  for  the  better  in  many 
ways.  I  was  homesick  for  a  time,  as  most  boys 
are,  and  missed  the  home  safeguards  and  sanc- 
tities; but  the  work  was  not  so  hard  as  a  rule, 
and  the  hours  were  much  shorter,  for  save  when 
we  were  very  busy  we  did  not  work  more  than 
ten  hours  a  day,  and  Master  Birch  kept  a  good 
table,  rough  to  be  sure,  but  wholesome  and 
plentiful,  so  that  I  began  to  grow  apace  and 
moved  an  old  man  to  say,  when  he  would  step 
into  the  forge  to  warm  his  hands,  "  How  thou 
does  grow  to  be  sewer:  if  thaa  doesn't  stop 
soin,  we  sail  hev  to  put  a  stiddy  [anvil]  on  thee 
heead."  And  then  he  would  grin. 

And  this  was  not  only  an  ampler  life,  but  a 
wider  world  than  that  in  which  I  was  so  far 
raised  on  the  Washburn.  So  the  environment 
was  finer  in  many  ways.  Some  readers  of  these 
memories  may  remember  the  lines  of  Words- 
worth in  which  he  makes  a  picture  true  to  the 
life  of  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"  Yorkshire    dales,   where   warm    and    low   the 

hamlets   lie, 

Each  with  its  little  plot  of  sky  and  little  lot  of 
stars." 

The  dale  I  left  answers  well  to  the  picture,  as 
Wharfedale  does  also  in  its  upper  reaches,  but 
begins  to  open  out  where  the  town  of  Ilkley 
stands  into  wider  holms  and  uplands,  bound  on 
the  south  by  the  "  fine  brow  of  crags "  the 
poet  Gray  saw  in  a  journey  through  the  dale, 
and  mentions  this  wise  in  one  of  his  letters.  The 
town  also  holds  a  fine  historic  interest,  as  I  came 
to  learn  in  the  course  of  time.  On  this,  how- 
ever, I  cannot  dwell  now,  but  may  ask  for  room 
to  tell  the  story,  it  may  be,  when  these  mem- 
ories come  to  a  close. 

And  now  I  will  return  to  note  that  the  spark 
struck  out  on  the  day  when  I  bought  the  tiny 
book  at  prime  cost  was  not'  as  a  fire  enfolding 
itself,  to  be  no  more  seen  or  heard  of.  It  must 
have  started  a  fire  in  my  nature  which  has  not 
yet  burned  down  to  white  ashes;  for,  when  I 
had  learned  to  read  to  some  purpose,  I  see  my- 
self in  the  far-away  time  and  cottage  reading, 
as  I  may  truly  say  in  my  case,  for  dear  life. 
There  was  a  small  store  of  books  in  our  home, 
and  among  them  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim,"  "  Rob- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


inson  Crusoe,"  and  Goldsmith's  histories  of  Eng- 
land and  Rome.  These  I  may  say  I  almost  got 
by  heart.  The  rest  were  religious  books ;  they 
did  not  suit  me,  so  I  let  them  hang  on  the  shelf, 
—  more's  the  pity,  do  you  say?  And  I  an- 
swer, I  am  not  so  sure  about  that,  because  I 
think  it  was  then  I  must  have  found  the  germ 
in  those  I  did  read  of  my  lifelong  instinct  for 
the  use  of  simple  Saxon  words  and  sentences 
which  has  been  of  some  worth  to  me  in  the  work 
I  was  finally  called  to  do.  And  now  when  my 
work  is  almost  done,  and  it  may  be  the  first 
sign  of  dotage  is  anec-dotage,  may  I  give  a  little 
toot  on  the  trumpet  to  help  verify  my  surmise? 
A  good  many  years  ago,  as  I  was  walking  down 
Broadway,  a  young  gentleman  said  to  me,  "  I 
am  a  student,  sir,  preparing  for  the  ministry, 
and  our  president,  Dr.  Hitchcock,  said  to  our 
class  the  other  day  we  must  go  to  the  Church 
of  the  Messiah  and  hear  you  for  your  English, 
so  I  am  coming."  Pardon  the  toot. 
.y  My,  father  noticed  in  good  time  my  hunger 
I  for  books,  and,  as  there  was  no  money  to  buy 
.  more,  the  dear  good  fellow  began  to  borrow 
them  from  far  and  wide  in  our  small  commune. 
He  found  Burns  and  Shakespeare  for  me,  with 
more  I  do  not  remember,  and  brought  them 


SOME  MEMORIES 


home;  but  he  laid  down  the  law  that  I  should 
not  soil  them,  and  should  return  them  when 
they  were  well  read  to  the  owner,  so  I  think  the 
lenders  had  no  reason  to  complain  with  our 
dear  Sir  Walter  Scott  that  some  of  his  friends 
were  good  book-keepers,  but  bad  accountants. 
Now  I  come  to  Ilkley  again  where  in  the  first 
year  of  my  'prenticeship  I  found  one  of  the 
friends  that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother.  He 
was  some  years  my  elder  —  ten  I  think,  —  a 
workingman  who  never  married,  and  was  be- 
yond all  comparison  the  best  read  man  and  of 

>  the  finest  culture  among  the  native  men  of  the 
town.  John  Dobson  —  let  me  write  his  name 

!  for  love's  sake  —  was  my  whole  college  of  pro- 
fessors, if  I  may  use  the  term,  through  the 
twelve  years  of  my  life  there  as  apprentice  and 
then  manager  of  the  forge.  There  was  no 
library  where  we  could  borrow  books,  so  he 
must  buy  them  out  of  his  scant  wages;  for  I 
had  no  money.  This  he  would  gladly  do,  spar- 
ing to  spend,  and  bring  them  to  me  with  shin- 
ing eyes. 

John  was  fond  of  Scotch  metaphysics  and 
other  books   of  that  school,   and  books  which 
held  arguments  with  you  deep  and  vital,  touch- 
ing the  eternal  supremacy  of  mind  over  matter, 
[  25  ] 


the  immanency  of  God  and  His  adequacy  to  take 
care  of  the  world  He  had  made;  the  essays  of 
John  Foster,  the  eminent  Baptist,  Robert  Hall, 
describes  as  a  lumbering  wagon  laden  with 
golden  ingots;  and  the  essays  of  Isaac  Taylor, 
—  these  and  many  more,  stories  of  dauntless 
fights  for  the  soul's  freedom,  and  most  especially 
those  of  the  old  Scotch  Covenanters.  He  re- 
minds me  now  of  Davie  Deans  in  "  Old  Mor- 
tality," and  considered  MacCrie's  answer  to  Sir 
Walter's  misstatements  about  them  of  more 
worth  than  all  the  Waverley  Novels. 

He  walked  on  foot  to  Scotland  to  visit  the 
battlefield  of  Drumclog,  for  his  main  reason, 
and  to  see  "  The  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant "  signed  with  the  blood  of  the  saints ;  and 
went  or  came  through  Westmoreland,  stealing 
near  the  home  of  Wordsworth  without  leave  or 
license,  and  saw  the  old  poet,  almost  blind  then, 
seated  on  a  chair  in  the  sun,  while  his  old  wife 
came  outdoors  swiftly  with  a  shawl  to  wrap 
about  his  shoulders. 

If  John  Dobson  had  come  into  this  world  two 
hundred  years  or  so  earlier,  he  would  have  gone 
out  with  Black  Tom  Fairfax  of  Denton  a  mile  or 
so  down  the  river  from  Ilkley  to  the  battle,  but 
would  have  changed  into  the  Ironsides  before 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Marston  Moor.  And  when,  after  his  return 
from  Scotland,  he  heard  there  was  still  a  rem- 
nant left  of  the  old  Covenanters,  I  think  only 
the  good  common  sense  which  held  him  fair 
and  true  prevented  him  from  returning  to  hunt 
them  out  and  say,  I  am  of  your  heart  and  mind. 
Half  a  dozen  men  all  told  owed  more  to  John 
than  to  any  other  man. 

The  hunger  for  books  grew  by  what  it  fed 
on.  Two  of  my  shopmates  were  hard  drinkers, 
and  Master  Birch  had  fallen  away  from  the 
grace  of  sobriety ;  but  my  love  for  books  fought 
the  fiend  with  a  finer  fire.  For  many  years  I 
never  ate  a  meal,  if  I  could  help  it,  without  a 
book  at  my  elbow.  I  did  worse  than  this,  for 
when  I  went  a  courting  I  would  still  be  reading ; 
and  if  my  sweetheart  had  not  been  the  best 
lassie  in  all  the  world  for  me,  as  well  as  the 
bonniest,  she  would  have  given  me  the  mitten, 
and  served  me  right. 

I  had  no  dream  of  the  worth  which  might  lie 
in  the  hunger  any  more  than  that  I  should  sit 
here  this  morning  touching  these  memories 
while  the  soft  thunder  of  this  great  city  steals 
through  my  library.  The  worth  lay  in  the 
reading  in  which  not  seldom  I  would  "  plunge 
soul  headlong,  impassioned  by  the  beauty  and 
[  27  ] 


salt  of  truth."  And  I  still  remember  how  I 
would  climb  up  to  the  moor  on  Sunday  after- 
noons in  the  pleasant  summer-time  with  some 
book  —  I  always  went  to  the  old  church  in  the 
morning  —  sit  down  on  one  great  gray  crag  to 
read  a  chapter  and  to  watch  the  sunshine  ripple 
over  the  heather  like  a  great  translucent  sea,  and 
listen  to  the  music  of  the  bells  in  the  dark  old 
tower  at  Haworth  meet  and  mingle  with  the 
music  from  the  tower  of  our  own  church  be- 
low where  the  Longfellows  worshipped  through 
some  centuries  of  time.  Then  something  I  had 
read  would  set  me  thinking  and  talking  back,  as 
we  say,  with  no  audience  but  the  moor  sheep 
looking  up  in  wonder  as  they  fed. 

Then  the  memory  comes  of  a  change  through 
a  great  sorrow  which  befell  me,  when  my  life 
was  dark  in  the  shadows  of  death,  for  which  I 
found  no  help  in  books  and  must  find  help  in 
God.  I  did  not  consult  with  flesh  and  blood, 
not  even  with  my  dear  friend  and  good  helper 
John.  The  whole  experience  seemed  too  sacred. 
The  secret  lay  between  God  and  my  own  soul, 
and  seems  still  so  sacred  that  I  hesitate  over 
these  lines. 

But  in  about  a  month  my  heart  was  quiet.  I 
had  found  rest  in  Him,  and  then  must  needs  find 
[  28] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


fellowship  among  those  who  were  like  hearted; 
for  the  great  woman  well  says : 

"  On  solitary  souls  the  Universe 
Looks  down  inhospitable,  and  the  human  heart 
Finds  nowhere  shelter  but  in  human  kind." 


IV 


There  was  a  band  of  Methodists,  my  old 
neighbors  and  friends,  who  met  in  a  small 
chapel.  There  I  went  and  told  them  in  not 
many  words  how  it  was  with  me.  They  won- 
dered first  and  then  gave  me  a  warm  welcome. 
I  had  found  out  that  one  stick  is  not  good  for  a 
fire.  I  knew  how  they  would  have  loved  to 
have  a  share  in  my  conversion,  open  and  above 
board,  with  Hallelujahs  and  Amens;  but  there 
I  was,  take  me  or  leave  me.  They  were  not 
over-particular  about  the  sticks  if  they  would 
burn  well,  while  in  the  burning  a  certain  gift  of 
speech  came  I  must  have  inherited  from  my 
mother,  in  the  prayer  and  class  meetings,  of 
which  this  was  the  upshot.  In  about  a  year 
the  preacher  in  charge  of  the  churches  came  to 
see  me  and  told  me  how  the  brethren  in  the 
quarterly  meeting  on  the  previous  Monday 
had  risen  one  by  one  and  said  it  had  been 
borne  in  upon  their  hearts  that  I  had  a  call  to 
preach  the  gospel.  They  were  local  preachers, 
[30] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


with  a  gift  for  this  work,  and  rustical  men, 
with  one  exception,  who  made  their  own  living  as 
artisans  and  small  farmers,  and  preached  on 
Sundays  for  the  love  of  God  and  of  human  souls, 
while  some  of  them  answered  well  to  the  canon 
of  the  great  Swiss  reformer,  "  A  man  who  is 
truly  called  to  preach  the  gospel  may  know 
many  things,  but  must  know  two, —  God  and 
how  to  speak  to  the  people." 

Shall  I  say  that  there  have  been  moments  in 
my  life  when  what  "  Friends  "  call  "  the  inward 
light "  has  shone  or  flashed  for  me  on  turning 
points  always  as  I  see  now?  Well  this  was  one, 
and  the  first.  I  told  good  old  Michael  that  I 
should  be  glad  to  try,  and  he  said  I  must  be 
ready  when  he  called.  So  I  went  home  to  think 
out  a  sermon  from  the  text,  "  As  I  live,  saith 
the  Lord,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  a 
sinner." 

The  word  came  duly  that  I  must  preach  at 
the  chapel  in  Addingham  three  miles  up  the  river. 
It  was  Sunday  afternoon.  Luther  loved  to 
preach  on  Sunday  afternoons  because  the  men 
servants  and  maid  servants  could  come  to  hear 
him  then  in  great  numbers,  but  I  found  only  a 
handful.  And  here  I  must  make  confession. 
The  sermon  was  divided  into  three  parts :  the 
[  31  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


firstly  and  lastly  were  my  own,  the  secondly  I 
stole  from  a  sound  Scotch  divine. 

I  must  have  no  paper,  so  I  had  none,  but 
managed  somehow  to  get  through.  There  was 
no  greeting  from  the  hearers  as  I  came  out  of  the 
chapel  to  go  home ;  but  half  way  there  I  halted, 
for  I  found  I  had  quite  forgotten  the  secondly  I 
had  stolen.  And  then  came  the  painful  con- 
clusion that  it  served  me  right,  and  my  text 
should  have  been  by  good  rights,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  steal,"  while  from  that  time  to  this  I  may 
say  in  all  honesty  I  have  stood  true  to  Paul's 
words,  "  Let  him  that  stole  steal  no  more." 

There  was  no  inward  light  for  me  then.  I 
had  meant  to  do  a  mean  thing  and  had  failed, 
but  by  heaven's  grace  the  failure  opened  the 
way  to  my  ordination  as  a  Methodist  local 
preacher.  I  felt  no  great  eagerness  to  try 
again :  my  sin  had  found  me  out.  They  did  not 
know  my,  secret,  and  old  Michael  sent  me  on  a 
Sunday  soon  after  to  preach  in  a  farmer's 
kitchen,  on  the  lift  of  the  moor,  where  they  only 
had  preaching  now  and  then,  and  where  I  may 
suppose  he  thought  poor  provision  might  pass 
where  the  feasts  came  few  and  far  between. 

It  was  in  June.  I  see  the  place  still,  and  am 
aware  of  the  fragrance  of  the  wild  uplands 


SOME  MEMORIES 


stealing  through  the  open  lattice  on  bars  of 
sunshine,  to  mingle  with  the  pungent  snap  of 
the  peat  fire  on  the  hearth  which  gives  forth  the 
essence  of  the  moorlands  for  a  thousand  years. 
And  I  still  mind  how  heavy  my  heart  was  that 
afternoon.  I  had  been  trying  all  the  week  to 
find  a  sermon  in  a  parable ;  but  there  was  no  pulse 
to  answer,  no  vision,  and  Bishop  Home  says, 
"  If  you  distil  dry  bones,  all  you  will  have  for 
your  pains  is  water." 

Still  there  I  was,  the  preacher,  and  they  were 
simple-hearted  folk  up  there,  of  the  old  Meth- 
odist election  unto  grace,  eager  and  hungry  for 
the  word  of  life,  and  ready  to  come  in  with  the 
grand  Amens. 

The  big  farm  kitchen  was  full,  and  they  were 
just  the  hearers  to  help  a  poor  soul  over  the 
sand  bars  on  the  lift  of  their  full  hearts.  So 
they  sang  with  a  will;  and  where  in  all  the 
world  will  you  hear  such  singing  with  a  will 
as  in  Yorkshire  and  Lancashire !  Then  I  must 
pray.  Father  Taylor  said,  "  I  cannot  make 
a  prayer,"  nor  can  I.  But,  with  those  hearts 
filled  from  the  springs  of  life,  I  felt  that  day 
the  prayer  was  making  me.  Then  the  time 
came  for  the  sermon.  Some  stammering  words 
came  to  my  lips,  and  then  some  more,  while 
[  33  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


gleams  of  light  began  to  play  about  my  parable. 
And  their  eyes  began  to  shine,  while  now  and 
then  the  grand  Amens  came  in  as  a  chorus  from 
the  chests  of  men  who  had  talked  to  each  other 
in  the  teeth  of  the  winds  up  there  from  the  times 
of  the  Saxons  and  the  Danes.  And  now  after 
all  these  years  I  feel  sure  it  was  given  me  that 
day  what  I  should  say. 

So  the  service  ended,  and  the  good  man  of  the 
house  came,  laid  his  hands  on  me,  and  said  very 
tenderly :  "  My  lad,  the  Lord  has  called  thee  to 
preach  the  gospel.  The  Lord  bless  thee  and 
make  thee  faithful  in  the  truth."  And  all  the 
people  said  Amen,  while  I  have  always  said  that 
this  was  my  true  ordination. 

The  service  on  the  moor  side  and  ordination 
from  the  hands  and  heart  of  the  good  old  farmer 
helped  me  greatly  to  feel  that  I  had  a  call  to 
preach,  and,  if  I  was  true  to  my  calling,  need 
not  filch  from  any  Scot  or  lot  for  such  sermons 
as  I  could  compass.  But  I  feel  sure  also  that 
I  was  exalted  above  measure  and  needed  to  have 
my  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  buffet  me.  Well,  this 
was  what  befell  me. 

The  minister  in  charge  sent  word  that  I 
must  preach  on  the  next  Sunday  evening  at  our 
own  chapel  in  Ilkley,  and  I  was  proud  of  the  ap- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


pointment.  They  should  see  what  I  could  do. 
I  do  not  remember  the  text  or  the  sermon  now, 
only  that  I  was  rather  proud  of  the  effort.  But 
on  the  Monday  morning,  as  I  was  going  down  to 
the  forge,  I  met  one  of  the  members  of  the  small 
society,  a  shoemaker,  and  a  thoughtful  man, 
who  said :  "  I  went  to  hear  thee  preach  last 
neet.  Would  thou  let  me  tell  thee  what  I  think 
of  thy  sermon  ?  "  "  Yes,"  I  answered,  feeling 
almost  sure  I  should  hear  a  word  of  commenda- 
tion ;  but  there  was  no  such  word.  "  I  think 
thou  will  never  mak  a  preacher  like  what  we 
want,"  he  said.  "  Thou  wants  to  reason  ower 
much,  and  that  will  never  do.  We  want  our 
preachers  to  preach  from  the  heart,  not  from 
the  head :  to  say,  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord,'  and 
be  sure  about  that.  Thy  preaching  may  do 
for  some  folks,  but  it  winnat  do  for  us."  Then 
good  old  Tom  went  his  way,  and  I  went  mine. 
I  was  not  glad  for  the  thorn,  yet  I  have  thought 
many  a  time  since  then  he  was  not  a  messenger 
of  Satan  sent  to  buffet  me,  but  a  very  honest 
man  who  said  what  he  most  surely  believed. 

And  here  again  I  must  anticipate  this  inci- 
dent in  my  memories.     Seventeen  years  after, 
when  I  was  a  minister  in  our  own  denomination, 
of  about  six  years  standing,  I  crossed  the  ocean 
[  35  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


on  my  first  visit  to  the  motherland  and  my 
mother,  and  of  course  must  go  to  Ilkley:  was 
there  over  a  Sunday  and  met  my  messenger  on 
his  way  to  the  chapel.  I  greeted  him  gladly, 
but  he  said,  "  I  don't  know  ye,  sir."  So  I  told 
him  my  name,  and  after  chatting  some  moments 
he  said,  "  I  am  ever  so  pleased  to  see  ye,  sir.  I 
am  going  t'  chapel,  and  the  preacher  has  sent 
word  he  cannot  come,  he  is  badly.  Ye  were  a 
local  when  ye  left  us :  do  ye  preach  a  bit  still  ?  " 
"  Yes,"  I  answered,  "  I  am  still  a  preacher." 
"  Then  ye  will  come  and  take  our  man's  place. 
We  shall  be  ever  so  glad  to  hear  you  again  after 
all  these  years."  Then  I  told  him  I  was  no 
longer  a  local,  but  was  settled  over  a  church  in 
Chicago  of  quite  another  brand.  The  old  man's 
face  fell  as  he  said,  "  What  made  ye  leave  us  ?  " 
I  asked  him  if  he  remembered  telling  me  I  should 
reason  myself  out  of  the  Methodist  body  if  I 
did  not  change  my  methods,  and  I  thought  his 
words  had  come  true.  We  clasped  hands,  said 
good-bye,  and  I  saw  the  old  man  no  more  on  the 
earth. 

The  old  miller  in  the  town  also  gave  me  a  piece 
of  his  mind  after  my  first  effort.     He  said  I 
should  make  a  preacher  in  time,  and  be  right 
[  36  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


useful;  for  they  would  use  me  for  a  spare  rail 
to  fill  the  gaps,  and  we  needed  such  a  rail  to 
keep  things  straight.  There  was  scant  time  for 
the  preparation  of  the  sermons  so  called.  I 
went  to  see  Dr.  Dewey  for  love's  sake  when  he 
was  near  the  end  of  his  long  life,  and  saying 
something  as  we  sat  in  his  study  about  the  high 
worth  to  us  of  his  sermons,  he  looked  up  and 
said,  "  I  do  not  call  them  sermons :  I  call  them 
things  —  only  things." 

So  I  may  well  call  mine  "  things" ;  and,  scant 
of  time  for  close  study,  I  must  find  some  other 
way  to  my  purpose  then  and  through  the  ten 
years  of  my  time  as  a  local  preacher  here  and  in 
England,  while  I  was  still  at  work  in  the  forge, 
and  the  problem  in  some  sort  was  solved  in  this 
way.  When  I  would  be  hard  at  work  for  all 
I  was  worth,  some  thought  I  had  harbored  would 
suddenly  grow  luminous,  touching  earth  or 
heaven,  would  be  as  the  seed  which  groweth 
secretly,  and  there  would  be  no  great  trouble 
when  the  time  came  for  the  reaping.  Or  the 
idea  would  still  elude  me,  coming  and  going  as 
the  winds  come  and  go,  giving  me  sometimes 
sore  distress,  yet  for  the  things  worth  the  pain 
there  would  be  a  day  of  redemption,  when  the 
[  37  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


thought  I  could  not  capture  captured  me,  and 
turned  the  croak  I  had  feared  I  must  make  into 
a  new  song. 

One  of  these  songs  of  deliverance  still  haunts 
my  memory.  I  had  walked  to  Burnsall  twelve 
miles  up  the  river  to  take  the  services  in  the 
chapel,  and  then  walk  home  ready  for  my  work 
in  the  morning.  The  new  song  carried  me  away 
captive,  so  that  I  took  no  note  of  time,  and  as 
nearly  as  I  can  remember  sang  my  way  through 
a  good  ninety  minutes.  It  was  a  sore  imposi- 
tion. When  an  eminent  judge  was  asked  how 
long  he  thought  a  sermon  should  be,  he  an- 
swered, "  Twenty  minutes,  with  a  leaning  to  the 
side  of  mercy."  And  when  a  young  fledgling 
in  our  dale  told  the  minister  he  believed  he  had 
"  a  call,"  and  took  for  his  text  "  I  am  the  light 
of  the  world,"  an  aged  sister,  all  out  of  patience 
with  him,  after  some  time  cried  out,  "  John,  if 
thou's  the  light  of  the  world,  I  think  thou  needs 
snuffin'."  So  did  I,  no  doubt,  that  Sunday 
evening,  and  I  have  never  done  the  like  again  in 
all  these  years.  And  yet  it  is  hard  to  draw  the 
line,  for  a  sermon  of  an  hour  shall  seem  shorter 
from  one  man  than  a  sermon  of  twenty  minutes 
from  another.  On  my  life  in  the  forge  as  boy 
and  man  I  must  not  dwell,  because  these  mem- 
[  38  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


cries  are  of  my  ministry  in  their  main  purpose. 
And  to  tell  the  clean  truth,  I  think  I  was  never 
a  very  good  blacksmith,  not  nearly  so  good  as 
my  father;  for  to  do  anything  supremely  well 
you  must  give  your  whole  mind  to  it,  yes,  and 
your  heart,  and  these  for  me  were  given  to  the 
books.  Still,  as  manager  of  the  forge  after 
the  old  master  died,  I  could  command  the  highest 
wages  and  believe  I  gave  worth  for  worth,  while 
one  bit  of  work  that  I  can  lay  my  hands  on  is 
still  to  be  seen.  I  must  make  a  pair  of  iron 
gates.  This  sort  of  work  is  done  by  the  white- 
smith; but  I  took  the  job  with  no  proper  tools 
or  skill  for  that  work,  and  the  result  was  a  pair 
of  gates  as  homely  as  a  barn  door, — so  homely 
that  I  would  dream  of  them  after  I  came  to  this 
new  world,  and  say  to  myself,  If  I  can  ever  af- 
ford the  money,  I  will  ask  to  have  a  new  pair 
made  by  some  skilful  man  over  there,  and  the 
old  things  sold  for  scrap  iron. 

But  just  a  touch  of  satisfaction  came  to  me 
on  my  last  visit  to  the  homeland  a  few  years 
ago,  when  the  humor  took  me  to  go  and  have 
another  (and  it  may  well  be  the  last)  look  at 
the  gates  I  had  made  just  fifty  years  before. 
The  touch  of  satisfaction  lay  in  the  fact  that 
not  a  rivet  had  sprung  in  the  clanging  back  and 
[  39] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


forth  through  all  the  years.  Those  on  the  lock 
had  sprung,  but  that  was  set  by  another  man. 
So  I  said,  I  have  so  much  to  the  good  in  any 
case.  And  when  I  came  home,  being  in  Chicago 
on  a  visit,  President  Harper  asked  me  to  come 
and  speak  to  some  of  the  students ;  and  I  wove 
in  the  story  of  my  gates,  of  which  the  moral 
was,  "  No  matter  how  homely  your  work  may 
be  in  this  world,  look  well,  my  boys,  to  the 
rivets." 


[  40  ] 


y 


In  1849  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  emigrate 
to  this  new  world.  I  had  dreamed  for  some 
years  of  doing  this  when  I  was  able.  My  father 
and  mother  had  made  up  their  minds  to  come 
when  they  were  married ;  but  the  panic  of  1823- 
24  had  struck  England  like  a  bolt  from  the 
blue  and  slain  their  hope,  while  among  my  earli- 
est memories  this  still  stays  clear  of  sitting  by 
the  fireside  and  listening  as  they  would  talk  of 
their  dead  or  dying  hope.  They  had  heard 
from  Tom  Ross,  one  of  my  father's  shopmates, 
who  had  come  here  and  was  doing  well.  They 
would  talk  of  Tom  and  then  of  their  regret. 
So  I  think  the  seed  was  sown  then  which  came 
in  good  time  to  the  harvest. 

When  it  was  known  that  I  was  to  emigrate, 
a  gentleman  of  note  came  to  see  me  and  said, 
"  You  will  go  to  Canada  of  course,  and  I  will 
give  you  letters  to  friends  in  Montreal  or  in 
Australia,  if  you  choose  to  go  there."  But, 
thanking  him,  said  I  was  going  to  the  United 
States.  "  You  have  friends  there,"  he  said, 
[  41  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


But  I  answered,  "  I  do  not  know  a  soul  there." 
And  no  doubt  he  thought  I  was  standing  in 
my  own  light. 

But  this  was  the  truth :  the  light  lay  on  these 
States,  the  inward  light  I  must  mind  without 
debate,  and  have  followed  these  many  years.  I 
was  alone.  The  great  sorrow  I  touched  in  one 
of  these  memories  rested  in  the  death  of  my 
wife  eighteen  months  after  our  wedding.  We 
were  of  those  who  marry  young.  I  was  in 
no  haste  to  marry  again ;  but  now  the  time  had 
come  to  find  a  helpmeet  and  the  woman  who  was 
to  be  by  far  my  better  half  through  more  than 
forty  years, —  how  well  I  know  this  now ! 

And  just  for  the  humor  of  it,  when  we  talked 
of  our  life  together,  I  would  say  I  won  her 
heart  through  a  sermon  from  the  text,  "  The 
spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come,"  while  she  would 
answer,  "  I  could  have  no  great  opinion  of  the 
woman  you  would  win  by  that  sermon." 

We  made  the  sacred  vows  in  mid  April,  1850, 
and  went  at  once  to  Liverpool  to  take  our  pas- 
sage for  New  York  on  the  old  liner  Roscius, 
where  we  landed  in  four  weeks  to  the  day.  I 
had  read  all  the  books  I  could  find  about  this 
strange  land  to  me  —  the  prospect  for  good 
work  and  wages  —  but  wanted  to  know  more 


SOME  MEMORIES 


about  the  people,  their  spirit  and  temper,  and 
if  they  were  what  we  call  "  folksy."  So  I  had 
walked  some  miles  to  see  a  kinsman  of  my 
wife  who  had  come  over  three  times  to  seek 
his  fortune,  but  had  by  no  means  found  it,  poor 
fellow!  I  told  him  my  errand,  and  of  our  in- 
tention to  emigrate  and  make  a  new  home  in  this 
new  world.  "  I  hear  you  have  been  there  three 
times.  Please  tell  me  all  you  can  about  the 
people  you  found  there.  Are  they  kind  and 
well  disposed  toward  an  Englishman,  a  working 
man  and  a  stranger?"  "No,"  he  answered  in 
his  broad  Yorkshire,  "  they  are  nayther.  Wha, 
they'll  tak  the  varry  teeth  out  o'  yer  heead  if 
ye  doant  keep  yer  moath  shut ! "  I  noticed 
he  had  lost  some,  so  this  was  not  quite  encourag- 
ing; but  there  we  were  after  four  weeks  at  sea, 
drawing  up  to  the  wharf  in  New  York,  and 
must  go  ashore  and  run  our  risk.  We  stood 
ready  to  land  when  I  heard  a  man  speak  to 
another  in  our  own  tongue  —  broad  Yorkshire 
—  and,  speaking  to  him,  I  found  he  kept  a 
tavern  and  was  seeking  guests.  He  asked  us 
to  go  there,  and  we  were  glad  to  go;  for  we 
knew  your  Yorkshire  man  down  to  the  ground. 
In  the  night  my  wife  was  taken  ill,  and  in  the 
morning  I  went  out  to  find  the  medicine  she 
[  43] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


wanted.  I  found  by  direction  of  our  host  a 
drug  store  on  Broadway  across  from  the  City 
Hall  Park,  told  the  man  in  charge  what  I 
wanted,  and  he  presently  began  to  talk  to  me, 
man  fashion.  Had  I  just  landed?  Where  was 
I  from?  What  was  my  business?  And  I  an- 
swered him,  but  thought  the  while,  This  may 
be  the  way  we  lose  our  teeth.  I  must  see  what 
he  charges.  "How  much,  sir?"  I  said.  And 
he  answered :  "  Not  a  cent.  Glad  to  do  it. 
Come  in  again  and  let  me  know  how  you  are 
getting  along  if  you  stay  in  New  York."  This 
was  my  first  lesson:  the  first  thing  I  bought 
in  this  new  world  I  must  not  pay  for. 

Our  destination  was  Philadelphia.  I  could 
not  tell  you  why  that  day,  but  can  now  if  there 
were  time  and  space  beyond  this.  The  light 
lay  on  that  city,  and  there  we  must  go.  We 
started  after  two  days  by  the  way  of  South 
Amboy  and  the  Delaware,  the  cheapest  route. 
It  was  a  lovely  mid  May  morning  as  we  went 
down  the  river.  The  orchards  were  in  full 
bloom.  It  was  the  most  beautiful  land  I  had 
ever  laid  my  eyes  on!  Our  host  in  New  York 
had  told  us  of  a  tavern  kept  also  by  a  York- 
shireman,  and  we  went  there. 

I  must  lose  no  time  finding  work,  for  our 
[  44  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


funds  were  low.  It  was  the  first  time  in  my  life 
I  must  seek  work  and  hurt  my  pride;  but  I 
was  spared  the  pang,  for  the  work  sought  me. 
I  saw  an  advertisement  in  the  Ledger, — 
"  Wanted,  a  blacksmith.  Apply  to  No.  5  Com- 
merce Street," — and  there  I  hastened.  The 
forge  was  in  the  country,  seven  miles  away, 
and  I  must  go  out  there  by,  the  old  York  road 
the  next  morning.  It  was  one  of  those  burn- 
ing days  that  come  in  mid  May.  I  was  just 
clear  of  the  city,  plodding  along,  when  a  gentle- 
man passed  me  rather  swiftly  in  a  carriage  and 
pair,  halted  presently,  and  when  I  came  into 
line  with  him  asked  me  where  I  was  bound. 
"  A  place  called  Shoemaker  town,  sir,"  I  an- 
swered. And  then  he  said :  "  I  am  going  that 
way.  Get  in  and  have  a  ride  this  hot  day." 
I  was  rising  twenty-seven.  It  was  the  first 
time  in  my  life  any  gentleman  had  asked  me 
to  come  in  and  ride  with  him.  He  also  wanted 
to  know  about  my  whence  and  whither.  I  told 
him  of  my  hopes,  but  not  my  fears.  He  told 
me  I  was  sure  to  prosper,  with  much  besides, 
clasped  my  hand  when  we  parted  in  good,  frank 
fashion, —  sorry  he  could  not  take  me  to  the 
forge  a  mile  away, —  and  I  never  saw  him 
again. 

[  45  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


One  more  memory  remains  of  our  first  ex- 
perience among  the  greedy  and  grasping  folk 
over  here  who  would  have  my  teeth.  When  I 
left  the  city,  my  good  helpmeet  said  she  must 
find  work  also  with  her  needle,  and  help  earn 
the  money  for  our  new  home  when  we  got  one. 
There  was  an  intelligence  office  free  for  emi- 
grants near  the  tavern  on  Front  Street  near 
Market  in  the  care  of  a  Mr.  Thomason,  a  Pres- 
byterian clergyman,  whose  health  had  given 
way  in  New  Orleans,  and  he  said,  "  My  wife 
wants  some  sewing  done,  so  you  will  come  to 
our  house."  So  my  dear  wife  went  there  and 
worked  some  days,  but  then  was  taken  down 
with  a  fever  she  had  no  doubt  caught  on  the 
ship.  It  was  of  a  bad  type.  There  were,  I  think, 
four  children  in  the  home.  There  would  be 
peril  if  she  was  kept  there,  and  the  right  thing 
to  do  would  be  to  send  their  charge  to  the 
hospital.  I  still  think  this  never  entered  into 
their  minds.  Mrs.  Thomason  isolated  her  in  a 
sweet,  bright  room  in  the  house,  called  in  their 
own  doctor,  took  care  of  her  with  no  nurse  to 
help,  and,  when  I  went  to  the  city  at  the  week's 
end,  they  said  I  must  be  their  guest,  and  come 
there  until  my  wife  was  well  able  to  join  me, 
and  we  could  start  our  home  in  good  fashion. 
[46] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


And  when  we  were  ready  to  go  we  said :  "  We 
can  never  cease  to  be  your  debtors  for  this 
care  and  kindness,  but  you  have  been  at  a 
serious  expense  also.  This  we  must  repay." 
I  was  in  good  work  at  good  wages.  We  would 
lose  no  time.  We  could  help.  For  this  we 
pleaded,  but  they  would  not  hear  us  for  a 
moment.  Not  a  penny,  should  we  pay  them: 
much  more  they  said.  And  then  the  dear  old 
man  laid  his  hands  on  us  and  gave  us  his  sweet 
benediction.  The  measure  was  full.  This  was 
the  answer  to  the  cousin's  caution  touching  the 
greedy  and  selfish  Americans. 


[47] 


VI 


My  work  in  the  forge  for  almost  nine  years 
was  making  claw-hammers,  at  a  stated  price  per 
dozen.  This  was  a  new  craft.  I  had  never 
made  a  claw-hammer  until  then  in  my  life;  but 
in  the  twelve  years'  training  I  had  got  what 
we  call  a  good  ready,  and  piece  work  puts  a 
man  on  his  mettle.  Old  veterans  in  the  anti- 
slavery  crusade  may  still  remember  an  illustra- 
tion Mr.  Garrison  was  rather  fond  of  using 
in  his  speeches  touching  the  sound  of  the  ham- 
mer in  the  forge  when  you  were  working  by 
the  day  or  the  job — "  by  the  day  —  by  the 
da-ay  —  by  the  da-a-ay,"  the  one  hammer  said, 
and  the  other,  "  by  the  job,  job,  job."  So 
you  need  not  ask  on  what  terms  each  man  was 
working. 

We  were  working  by  the  job,  and  I  soon 
caught  the  fine  contagion.  So  this  was  the 
result:  I  earned  double  the  wages  in  the  first 
month  that  I  was  paid  as  foreman  in  the  old 
forge  in  Ilkley.  But  this  is  also  true,  that  I 
worked,  I  may  venture  to  say,  twice  as  hard 
[48] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


in  the  new  forge  as  we  ever  thought  of  working 
in  the  country  smithies  of  the  old  homeland. 

We  lost  no  time  in  finding  a  home  the  best 
we  could  afford;  but  in  about  a  year  we  found 
one  much  better,  in  a  lovely,  green  lane,  away 
from  the  forge,  where  we  lived  until  we  moved 
West  in  1859.  We  were  strangers  there  as 
when  we  landed  in  the  city  seven  miles  away. 
No  soul  knew  us  or  knew  of  us ;  but  they  took 
us  in  not  as  the  cousin  said  they  would,  but  in 
the  good  Scripture  fashion,  so  that  we  soon 
began  to  feel  quite  at  home  among  them.  It 
was  a  new  land  and  a  new  life,  but  so  good 
and  fair  that  I  can  truly  say  there  was  no  day 
or  moment  in  a  day,  when  we  wanted  to  return 
to  the  life  we  had  left,  nor  has  there  been  one 
in  all  these  years. 

We  sought  no  friends:  they  came  to  us  of 
their  own  free  will.  And  I  think  it  was  on  the 
first  day  in  our  new  home  the  good  woman, 
our  next-door  neighbor,  came  in  with  a  dish 
of  stewed  tomatoes,  and  said :  "  I  wonder  if  you 
know  how  good  '  tomatusses '  are  ?  We  have 
more  than  we  can  use,  and  I  thought  you 
would  not  feel  offended  if  I  should  bring  some 
in."  We  were  not  offended. 

The  people  on  the  farms  were  mainly  Ger- 
[49] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


mans  of  the  third  or  fourth  generation,  with  a 
sprinkling  of  English  who  had  come  over  in 
Penn's  time  and  taken  up  the  land.  There 
were  a  good  many  "  Friends  "  also,  but  they 
were  not  very  friendly.  Their  soul  was  like 
a  star  and  dwelt  apart,  with  the  exception  of 
one  old  lady  well  up  among  the  nineties,  who 
came  over  painfully  on  her  crutch  to  greet  us. 
She  was  a  maiden  in  the  days  of  the  Revo- 
lution, and  could  tell  us  no  end  of  stories  of 
those  far-away  times,  touched  here  and  there 
by  a  fine  imagination.  Another  neighbor,  old 
Michael,  was  of  a  good  German  stock  that  stays 
by  the  land  and  old  usage.  Michael  would 
only  plant  his  onions  at  the  increase  of  the 
moon.  "  Did  you  ever  see  Washington  ?  "  I 
said  to  him  one  day.  "  Yes,  indeed  I  did,"  he 
answered,  "  and  it  were  this  way.  We  lived 
in  Germantown  when  I  were  a  boy,  and  one  day 
I  saw  Gen.  Washington  coming  along  our  lane. 
So  I  waited  until  he  come  near  where  I  were 
standing,  and  then  I  took  off  my  cap  and  made 
the  best  bow  I  knew  how  to;  and  he  looked 
down  at  me  a-smiling,  patted  me  on  my  head, 
and  said,  '  fine  lump  of  a  Dutch  boy.'  And 
what  do  you  think  of  that  ?  "  Alexander  Wil- 
son, the  early  and  eminent  ornithologist  and 
[  50  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


poet. —  not  eminent  — taught  a  school  a  mile 
away  from  our  home  when  the  last  century  was 
born.  Michael's  folks  had  moved  to  our  vill, 
I  found,  about  that  time.  So  I  said  to  him 
on  another  day,  "  Did  you  ever  go  to  school,  sir, 
to  a  teacher  by  the  name  of  Alexander  Wil- 
son ?  "  "  I  did,"  he  answered  promptly.  "  And 
do  you  remember  anything  you  would  call  queer 
about  him?"  "Yes,  and  it  was  this:  out  of 
school  hours  he  were  always  poking  among  the 
bushes  after  birds  and  birds'-nests."  I  told 
him  then  of  the  grand  book  the  master  had  made 
all  about  our  birds.  It  was  a  great  surprise: 
he  had  never  heard  of  the  book.  And  now 
I  am  glad  to  remember  this  glint  of  light  I 
got  at  first  hand  from  old  Michael,  of  which 
the  kinsfolk  of  the  great  ornithologist,  here  or 
in  Scotland,  who  read  the  Christian  Register  — 
or  ought  to  —  will  be  glad  to  make  a  note. 
And  the  tiny  picture  of  Washington  patting 
the  "  fine  lump  of  a  Dutch  boy  "  on  the  head 
is  more  to  me  than  some  eulogies  I  have  heard 
in  my  lifetime  of  the  most  noble  and  simple 
man. 

It  was  in  mid  May  I  went  to  work  at  the 
forge,  where  I  was  earning  good  money;  and 
then  in  July  we  came  to  a  standstill.  The  old 

[51  J 


SOME  MEMORIES 


boiler  must  be  replaced  by  a  new  one,  our  fires 
were  blown  by  fans;  and  this  meant  no  more 
work  at  the  anvil  for  three  weeks  or  a  month. 
I  could  not  afford  to  wait.  The  margin  of  my 
earnings  had  gone  for  the  outfit  of  the  small 
home.  I  must  find  work,  and  went  to  making 
hay  two  weeks  for  a  neighbor.  And,  when 
the  hay  was  in,  I  said  to  our  employer,  "  Mr. 
Hammond,  can  you  give  me  a  job  on  the 
boiler?  "  I  thought  he  did  not  like  to  say  the 
only  work  he  could  give  me  was  to  carry  a  hod 
for  the  bricklayers,  but  so  it  was.  And  I  said, 
"  I  am  your  man."  It  was  a  full  week's  work. 
I  earned  six  dollars.  It  was  through  a  ragged 
hole  in  the  wall  I  must  carry  my  hod,  and  there 
were  many  new  bumps  on  my  head  at  the  end 
of  that  week  when  the  dear  helpmeet  said,  "  Well 
done!"  and  —  Well  I  will  not  say  what  she 
did  besides. 

Seventeen  years  after,  in  the  heart  of  the 
summer,  they  were  building  our  new  church  in 
Chicago,  which  was  burnt  in  the  great  fire  of 
1871.  And  I  stood  on  a  beam  one  day  on  the 
first  floor  when  a  sturdy  Irishman  came  along 
with  a  hod  full  of  bricks,  halted  near  me  for 
some  moments,  wiping  his  face,  and  said,  "  This 
is  hard  work,  sur."  "  Yes,"  I  answered,  "  I 
[  52] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


know.  I  have  carried  a  hod  myself  in  my  time." 
The  good  fellow  looked  hard  at  me  for  a  mo- 
ment, shouldered  his  hod,  and  went  his  way, 
saying  something  I  did  not  hear.  I  went  to 
work  at  my  anvil  then  for  a  seven  years'  spell, 
and  as  I  became  more  clever  I  earned  more 
money,  $50  a  monlh  all  told  in  the  cool  months. 
And  then  in  October,  1857,  the  great  panic  of 
that  year  struck  us  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue. 
The  fires  went  out,  the  forge  was  closed,  and 
no  stroke  of  work  was  done  until  the  spring 
of  1858,  when  we  were  able  to  make  half-time. 
Mr.  Hammond,  our  employer,  could  not  even 
guess  how  long  the  panic  would  hold  us  in  its 
cruel  grip.  There  were  three  young  children 
by  this  time  about  the  mother's  knee.  We  had 
saved  some  money  and  should  have  saved  more, 
but  I  had  been  laid  off  for  a  spell  with  a  broken 
arm  and  again  with  a  splint  of  steel  in  my  eye. 
The  dear  housemother  had  also  been  sick  for 
weeks  together  through  those  years.  So  the 
margin  of  savings  was  small  and  would  not 
begin  to  see  us  through  the  winter,  and  now  we 
must  trust  in  Him  who  heareth  the  young  ravens 
when  they  cry.  Of  course  I  must  not  fold  my 
hands  and  wait  for  the  help  of  God,  I  must 
hustle.  I  use  the  word  because  I  like  it.  So 
[  53  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  mind  how  I  helped  to  dig  a  well  and  worked 
on  the  turnpike.  A  gentleman  many  years 
after  told  me  he  saw  me  breaking  stones,  but 
this  I  do  not  remember.  We  did  what  we  could, 
the  mother  and  I,  minding  my  old  mother's 
caution, — "  Don't  look  poor  and  don't  tell." 
And  then  help  came  without  our  asking. 

I  was  making  some  slim  purchase  at  the  one 
store  —  for  we  were  cutting  down. —  when 
Albert  Engle,  the  owner,  said :  "  You  must  not 
scrimp  your  family  for  anything  we  have  in 
our  jstore.  The  work  will  start  up  again,  and 
you  will  pay  me,  I  know,  when  you  are  able." 
Charles  Bosler,  the  miller,  came  to  see  me,  and 
said :  "  Come  to  my  mill  for  all  the  flour  and 
meal  you  need.  I  can  trust  you."  And  good 
George  Heller  followed  suit  about  the  rent. 
They  are  now  no  more.  They  made  good  the 
ancient  promise,  "  Before  you  ask  I  will  an- 
swer." And  so  I  must  record  their  names  in  my 
book  of  life.  And  then,  when  the  time  of  the 
singing  of  birds  had  come  and  the  grapes  gave 
a  goodly  smell,  the  fires  were  lighted  again 
and  the  hammers  rang  on  the  anvils.  How 
well  I  remember  the  day  when  I  made  my  first 
dozen  hammers  after  that  panic!  I  stood  at 
the  anvil  about  two  years  more,  and  then  laid 
[  54  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


down  my  hammer  for  good  and  all,  except  for 
some  fragment  of  an  hour  about  twelve  years 
after.  But  this  memory  belongs  to  our  life  in 
Chicago. 


[  55] 


vn 

No  word  has  been  said  touching  those  years 
about  the  work  I  must  do  on  Sundays,  because 
I  felt  this  must  wait  until  the  story  was  told 
of,  shall  I  say,  the  bread  and  butter,  the  roof 
and  the  fire.  While  here  also  there  was  a  panic 
which  must  be  met  and  overcome  not  by  the 
help  of  men  now,  but  I  say  in  pure  reverence 
of  the  Most  High.  I  brought  a  good  letter 
from  the  brethren  in  England  to  the  churches 
here  of  our  faith  and  order;  and  soon  after 
we  landed  in  Philadelphia,  dropping  into  a  book 
store  —  I  was  sure  to  do  that  —  found  the 
bookseller,  Thomas  Stokes,  was  a  Methodist  and 
a  local  preacher.  I  took  out  my  letter,  and, 
Methodist  fashion,  he  gave  me  at  once  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship ;  asked  me  to  go  with  him  to 
church  on  the  next  Sunday,  where  I  was  pre- 
sented to  the  minister,  who  was  also  glad  to 
read  my  letter  and  welcome  me.  There  was  a 
prayer  meeting  after  the  regular  service,  and 
I  was  asked  to  "  make  a  prayer."  And,  as 
we  walked  from  the  church,  my  friend  said: 
[  56  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"  I  feel  sure  that  was  a  good  prayer,  but  we  did 
not  understand  the  half  of  what  you  said.  I 
suppose  you  spoke  in  the  Yorkshire  dialect. 
You  will  have  to  speak  as  we  do  here  in  America 
if  you  are  a  local  preacher." 

I  had  never  thought  of  this,  had  indeed 
rather  prided  myself  on  my  good  English.  And 
it  was  not  broad  Yorkshire,  but  Brother  Stokes 
did  not  know  that.  And  no  matter  what  it  was, 
there  was  the  truth:  it  was  not  good  American. 
This  was  clear.  Here  was  another  panic.  If 
I  must  learn  the  new  tongue  and  forget  the 
old  before  the  people  would  hear  me,  rectify 
the  aspirates,  change  the  accents,  alter  the 
vowels,  and  all  the  rest,  when  could  I  begin 
to  be  heard  at  all  ?  This  was  the  situation  when 
we  had  got  our  home  in  order  and  joined  the 
church  near  at  hand  in  Milestown,  where  again 
they  gave  us  a  warm  welcome.  So  did  the 
minister  in  charge  of  the  circuit :  but  he  also  had 
heard  me  speak  in  a  meeting,  had  admitted 
me  to  the  band  of  local  preachers,  but  had  given 
me  no  chance  to  stand  in  a  pulpit.  Then  I 
think  I  was  angry ;  but  it  was  not  a  sinful  anger 
if  I  may  judge  from  this  distance  in  time,  and, 
after  waiting,  it  may  be,  two  months,  I  set 
a  snare  for  his  feet. 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  had  noticed  he  was  rather  given  to  ask  a 
brother  of  our  rank  to  take  the  service  when  he 
was  tired  or  had  a  very  small  audience,  and 
small  blame  to  him.  He  was  to  preach  in  a 
small  schoolhouse  on  a  blazing  August  Sunday 
afternoon  on  the  hill  above  our  town.  So  I 
went  to  the  service  in  the  hope  that  he  would 
invite  me  to  take  the  service  and  risk  the  dia- 
lect. He  did  risk  it,  the  good,  innocent  man! 
for  he  was  both.  And  I  am  not  sure  there  was 
any  overplus  of  the  divine  grace  in  me;  but 
I  felt  the  question  must  be  settled  that  day, 
whether  I  must  be  what  the  Scotch  call  a 
stickit  minister  until  I  learned  how  to  speak, 
or  win  against  the  formidable  hindrance. 

And  at  my  work  I  had  mused  over  those 
words  of  the  prophet  until  my  heart  burned, — 
"  Get  thee  up  in  thy  chariot,  for  there  is  a 
sound  of  abundance  of  rain."  I  forgot  all 
about  the  dialect,  so  did  the  small  band  about 
us.  The  farmer's  kitchen  on  the  moorside  and 
the  small  schoolhouse  on  the  hill  opened  each 
into  the  other.  My  brothers  in  the  ministry 
will  know  what  I  mean.  It  was  given  me  that 
day  what  I  should  say.  In  my  poor  measure 
and  degree  it  was  as  when  in  the  old  time  they 
spake  to  every  man  in  his  own  tongue.  I  was 
[  58] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


in  the  spirit  on  that  Lord's  Day.  How  I  should 
love  to  feel  that  burning  once  more  before  I  die ! 
We  speak  of  some  event  or  experience  as  worth 
a  year  of  our  life.  I  think  the  worth  of  that 
afternoon  has  gone  into  all  the  years  since  then. 
After  the  benediction  Brother  Taft  gave  me  a 
fine  grip  of  the  hand,  and  said,  "  Brother,  you 
shall  have  all  the  work  you  want  to  do."  And 
the  promise  was  kept.  After  some  time  a 
church  was  built  on  the  hill,  and  then  there  were 
four  in  the  circuit.  I  took  my  turn  and  turn 
about  in  them  all  through  the  nine  years. 
Slowly  but  surely  I  caught  the  new  tongue  in 
some  measure;  for  I  have  a  pliant  and  sensitive 
ear  and  was  much  pleased  when,  after  I  had 
mastered  the  speech,  an  old  man  said  to  me: 
"  I  did  not  understand  you  for  a  long  time 
when  you  came  to  preach  for  us,  but  I  felt 
good.  So  I  always  came  to  hear  you."  Still 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  am  already  perfect  in  this 
tongue ;  for  within  a  month,  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing after  the  sermon,  a  lady  came  forward  and 
said,  with  tears  in  her  voice,  "  I  am  from  York- 
shire, sir,  and  was  so  glad  to  hear  the  dear  old 
burr  here  and  there  in  your  discourse." 


[59] 


VIII 

As  I  touch  these  memories  of  the  old  time,  I 
would  fain  feel  that  I  am  as  one  who  sits  by 
the  fireside  in  the  evening,  and  talks  with  his  old 
friends  not  in  monologues,  but  in  conversation 
of  the  give  and  take.  Then  when  I  notice  here 
and  there  a  man  —  it  is  always  a  man  —  lift 
his  hand  toward  his  face  to  hide  a  yawn,  I  think 
it  is  time  to  shut  up  and  shut  down.  So  they  go 
home,  to  drop  in  again,  and  then  there  are  more 
memories  and  more,  until  the  tale  is  told  in  the 
evenings  at  home.  The  last  of  these  closed 
with  the  remark  of  my  old  friend,  that,  in  the 
early  years  when  he  heard  me  speak,  he  did  not 
understand  the  half  of  what  I  said,  but  he  felt 
good;  and  this  I  take  to  be  the  truth  touching 
a  good  many  beside  old  Robert.  But  in  no 
long  time  there  was  always  a  good  congregation 
in  each  of  the  chapels  to  hear  me,  no  matter 
about  the  aspirates  and  accents  or  the  way  I  had 
of  putting  things.  William  Jay  of  Bath  in 
England,  a  very  eminent  minister  in  his  time, 
would  say  to  the  students  for  the  ministry,  "  Do 
[  60  ] 


not  be  afraid  of  using  '  likes '  in  your  sermons : 
the  people  like  to  hear  them,  and  that  was  the 
Master's  way  who  taught  the  people  by,  par- 
ables." So  my  great  hunger  for  reading  all 
the  books  I  could  lay  my  hands  on  stood  me 
now  in  good  stead,  and  drew  the  folk  about 
me.  Moreover,  there  were  times  when  the  fire 
burned  as  in  the  schoolhouse  on  the  hill  and 
the  farmer's  kitchen  on  the  moorside,  and  there 
was  a  song  of  deliverance  which  helped  all 
round. 

It  was  within  a  year  also  of  this  ministry 
that  a  fine  old  farmer  halted  his  team  at  our 
door,  on  his  way  to  the  city,  to  see  if  I  would 
come  for  a  Sunday  to  preach  in  their  church 
some  six  miles  away  in  another  circuit.  They 
had  heard  about  me,  and  were  eager,  he  said, 
to  hear  me.  So  I  accepted  the  call  without 
demur.  Nothing  was  said  about  transport, 
though  it  was  a  stiff  walk;  but  this  made  no 
matter,  for  in  those  days  it  was  about  as  easy 
for  me  to  walk  as  to  sit  still, —  the  good  days 
that  are  no  more.  So  I  went,  and  found  a  good 
audience,  of  sorts,  to  hear  or  see  me;  but  on 
opening  a  ragged  Bible  to  find  my  lesson,  it 
was  not  to  be  found,  the  lesson  or  the  text,  and 
I  used  no  manuscript.  So  I  took  what  there 
[61] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


was  left  and  went  through  with  the  service,  per- 
haps with  a  touch  of  temper.  They  thanked 
me  with  warmth  when  the  service  was  over,  and 
asked  me  to  come  again  soon.  "  Yes,"  I  an- 
swered, "  I  shall  be  glad  to  come  again  when  I 
am  free,"  but  told  them  my  bother  with  the  old 
Bible,  and  said,  "  I  cannot  come  again  until 
you  get  a  new  one."  So  this  they  promised  they 
would  do,  and  made  their  promise  good. 

The  trouble  I  found  was  this,  in  talking  with 
my  host :  the  church  was  endowed  with  an  income 
of  about  three  hundred  dollars  a  year,  if  my 
memory  holds  good,  and  this  was  no  blessing, 
but  a  bane,  because  it  tapped  the  springs  of 
their  own  striving  and  giving,  though  they  were 
well-to-do  farmers  in  the  main.  So  the  church 
was  as  poor  as  Job's  turkey, —  I  get  the  simili- 
tude from  my  mother. 

There  was  no  fee  of  course,  but  all  the  same 
there  was  a  rich  reward.  I  found  the  town  had 
a  library  in  which  my  host  held  a  share  he  did 
not  use ;  and,  finding  out,  with  no  great  trouble, 
my  passion  for  books,  he  said,  "  I  shall  be 
glad  if  you  will  use  my  share,  with  no  cost  to 
yourself,  sir."  So  most  gladly  I  accepted  the 
gift.  There  was  no  money  to  spare  for  books 
in  our  home.  We  had  brought  over  about 
[62] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


twenty,  volumes,  and  these  were  precious;  and 
my  pen  pauses  here  as  I  try  to  reckon  all 
the  money  I  spent  in  books  through  the  nine 
years  at  the  anvil,  and  I  cannot  make  it  amount 
to  ten  dollars.  Here  the  dear  house-mother  put 
her  foot  down:  the  money  was  wanted  in  the 
home.  And  she  held  me  so  well  in  hand  that  I 
remember  laying  out  not  quite  a  dollar  in  a  very 
thick  volume  of  Littel  I  could  not  resist,  but 
durst  not  bring  in  under  my,  arm.  So  I  hid 
it  under  a  currant  bush  until  the  next  morning, 
and  arose  up  early  to  smuggle  the  thing  into 
the  house.  It  was  some  days  before  my  guard- 
ian saw  it  in  my  hand,  and  said,  "  My  dear, 
where  did  you  get  that  book?"  And  I  an- 
swered softly,  "  Why,  I  have  had  this  book  some 
time."  Which  was  in  some  sort  true:  I  had 
owned  the  book  a  whole  week.  Tennyson,  in 
"  The  Grandmother,"  says, — 

"  A  lie  which  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest 
of  lies"; 

but  I  do  not  feel  the  sting.  The  mother  smiled, 
but  said  no  more.  I  was  forgiven:  we  were 
good  at  forgiving,  my  wife  and  I. 

The  free  pass  for  the  library  was  a  great 
boon.     Here  was   a   fine  wealth   of   American 
[  63  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


books,  and  English  also,  I  had  not  read.  One 
Christmas-tide,  when  I  was  still  a  lad,  I  could 
not  be  spared  from  the  forge  to  go  home, 
so  this  was  a  sore  disappointment  the  goose  to 
our  dinner  did  not  heal;  and  I  was  sitting  by 
the  fire  in  the  evening  in  quite  a  grim  mood, 
when  a  neighbor  came  in  with  a  couple  of  vol- 
umes in  his  hands  he  put  into  mine  very  kindly, 
saying,  "  I  notice,  Robert,  thou's  fond  o'  read- 
ing, and  here's  a  book  I  think  thou  will  like."  It 
was  Irving's  "  Sketch-book."  I  just  devoured  the 
volumes  read  by  the  fire-light  that  evening  until 
bedtime,  and  forgot  all  about  my  lost  Christmas. 
This  was  the  first  American  book  that  had  come 
into  my  hands,  and  it  went  into  my  heart  to 
stay,  while  I  wonder  still  whether  this  was  not  a 
silken  thread  to  draw  me  hitherward.  Then  a 
volume  of  Longfellow's  Poems  came  to  my  hands, 
and  I  think  I  could  place  my  feet  to-day  exactly 
on  the  line  where  I  halted  to  read  "  The  Psalm 
of  Life"  in  a  journey  of  three  miles. 

So  these  were  my  familiar  friends;  but  here 
in  the  library  was  a  fine  store  I  could  read  to 
my  heart's  content,  where  the  New  World's  lit- 
erature clasped  hands  with  the  Old.  The 
library  was  some  six  miles  from  our  home;  but 
I  would  overpass  my  stint  of  hammers  in  some 
[  64  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


week,  make  time  to  go  browse  in  the  library, 
and  bring  home  more  books,  and  then  I  wist 
not  how  far  it  was  home  again,  for  I  read 
the  whole  way. 


IX 


In  no  long  time  after  this  the  men  in  the 
forges,  together  with  a  few  young  farmers, 
called  a  meeting  in  the  schoolhouse  for  the 
purpose  of  starting  a  lyceum  in  which  questions 
of  moment  should  be  discussed  by  the  members, 
sans  peur  et  sans  reproche  (dear  reader,  I  have 
stolen  this  from  Worcester's  Dictionary)  ;  and 
for  a  time  there  was  no  fear  and  no  reproach, 
nor  would  have  been  if  they  had  left  us  free 
to  handle  questions  close  of  kin  to  the  first 
proposed, — "  Which  are  the  most  beautiful,  the 
works  of  art  or  the  works  of  nature  ?  " —  harm- 
less as  new  milk  and  honey.  But  men  from  the 
city  came  in  who  cared  for  none  of  these  things, 
and  were  by  no  means  content  to  leave  us  to 
our  own  devices.  Emerson  says,  or  sings, 

"  The  old  wine  darkling  in  the  cask 
Feels  the  bloom  of  the  living  vine." 

1  i     II I 
I   ventured   once   to   show   him   the   figure   in 

Butler's   "  Hudibras "   in   very  near  the  same 

words,  and  he  said  he  had  never  seen  or  heard 

[66] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


of  the  lines  to  the  best  of  his  recollection.  This 
was  the  early  spring-time  of  evolution  and  the 
truth  of  the  descent  of  man.  The  question  was 
proposed  for  discussion  in  a  speech  far  too  long, 
I  thought,  by  a  gentleman  from  the  city.  We 
were  not  prepared  to  admit  the  question,  only 
to  condemn  the  whole  heresy  from  Alpha  to 
Omega.  The  creation  of  this  world  in  six  days, 
the  story  of  the  making  of  man,  and  the  woman 
from  his  rib,  and  the  fall  and  what  followed, — 
he  whistled  these  down  the  wind.  These  things 
were  myths,  he  said,  or  poems  or  what  not. 
Man  had  not  fallen,  but  had  won  his  way 
from  the  monad  to  the  eminence  on  which  we 
stood.  Well,  I  for  one  was  amazed.  This  was 
the  most  frightful  heresy  I  had  ever  heard.  If 
my  memory  is  true,  I  was  the  only  man  who 
tried  to  frame  an  answer,  and  was  indeed  the 
only  man  who  stood  in  a  pulpit  on  the  Sunday 
as  a  Christian  teacher.  The  ministers  gave  us 
a  wide  berth.  They  did  not  believe  in  free 
platforms.  So  I  stood  alone,  and  not  content 
to  scold;  for  I  think  this  was  the  staple  of  my 
speech.  I  must  needs  try  satire  in  verse,  or,  as 
Douglas  Jerrold  said  once  of  a  friend's  effort, 
in  worse,  of  which  I  happily  remember  only 
these  lines  our  good  editor  may  prudently  sup- 
[  67  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


press.  They  were  suggested  by  a  complaint 
my.  fine  heretic  had  made  in  our  lasting  meeting 
about  the  mosquitoes  in  which  I  took  their 
part :  — 

If  your  theories  hold  good, 

Man  was  a  muskeeter, 

So  we're  all  one  flesh  and  blood, 

Only  you're  compleeter. 

I  may  hope  to  be  a  man 

In  the  good  time  coming: 

Now  we're  working  to  your  plan, 

Letting  blood  and  humming. 

I  should  be  a  bit  ashamed  to  recall  the  dog- 
gerel if  I  did  not  remember  things  from  digni- 
taries of  the  Church  not  much  better  as  an 
answer  to  the  truth  of  evolution  which  since 
that  time  has  grown  so  radiant  to  the  mind  of 
thoughtful  men. 

Shall  I  say  now  that  another  question  sprung 
on  us  not  willingly,  but  perforce  because  ours 
was  still  a  free  platform,  was  this,  "  Are  the 
Garrisonian  Abolitionists  entitled  to  the  confi- 
dence and  support  of  the  American  people  ?  " 
This  was  a  burning  question  then,  and  it  set 
the  lyceum  afire.  I  hated  slavery  as  a  certain 
personage  was  said  to  dislike  holy  water.  My 
dear  father,  when  he  was  a  young  man,  went 
[  68] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


without  sugar  in  his  tea  for  a  long  spell,  and 
gave  the  money  he  saved  to  help  free  the  slaves 
in  the  West  Indies,  though  he  loved  the  sweet- 
ening as  he  loved  his  pipe,  which  he  could  not 
give  up.  So  there  was  an  inborn  instinct,  it 
may  be,  of  revolt  at  the  curse.  I  remember 
also  that  my  employer's  son  lent  me  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin "  when  it  was  published,  and  I 
sat  up  one  whole  night  and  until  past  midnight 
on  the  next  after  a  full  day's  work  to  read  the 
story. 

But  the  brotherhood  in  the  church  and  con- 
ference fought  shy  of  the  question  as  a  rule, 
with  some  noble  exceptions,  while  especially  it 
was  never  mentioned  in  the  pulpit  for  good  or 
evil  in  the  whole  nine  years  by  the  ministers 
in  charge  of  our  four  churches. 

I  went  into  the  debate  as  a  duck  goes  into 
the  water,  but  argued  the  best  I  knew  for  the 
gradual  abolition  of  the  curse,  because  I  believed 
this  was  the  good  and  safe  way.  But  one  even- 
ing Lucretia  Mott  came  to  the  meeting  and 
spoke  as  one  who  was  moved  by  the  holy  ghost. 
She  held  no  argument:  she  just  poured  out  her 
soul  on  us.  Some  one  says  that  in  the  abolition 
meetings  of  those  times  eloquence  was  dirt  cheap : 
her  speech  that  evening  was  of  gold,  well  re- 
[  69  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


fined.  She  could  quote  from  the  Bible,  chapter 
and  verse;  and  the  ancient  inspiration  blended 
with  the  new-born  from  her  lips  and  heart.  The 
whole  question  grew  luminous  to  me  through 
the  light  and  the  fire  from  heaven;  and  at  the 
next  meeting  I  made  a  clean  breast  of  it  in  a 
very  few  words,  and  then  sat  down, —  told  them 
that  I  also  was  a  Garrisonian  Abolitionist  from 
that  day  out.  And  now  I  think  of  this  ex- 
perience as  one  of  the  most  pregnant  moments 
in  my  life,  when  the  divine  hand  "  led  me  by  a 
way  I  knew  not  and  brought  me  into  a  large 
place," — the  church  and  fellowship  that  for 
almost  forty-five  years  has  been  my  glory  and 
my  joy.  I  cannot  for  my  soul's  health  say 
amen  to  what  has  been  said  to  me  and  about 
me  when  I  attained  just  now  to  the  eighty 
years.  The  dear  friend  whose  words  on  that 
evening  wrought  the  change  in  my  mind  and 
purpose  told  me  once  that,  when  she  spoke  in 
a  woods  meeting  many  years  before  down  in 
Maine,  an  Indian  chief  stalked  up  to  her  after 
the  meeting  closed,  held  out  his  hand,  and  said, 
"  You  have  done  well,  if  you  do  not  think  so." 
And  this  she  said  was  a  memorable  word,  the 
good  caution  of  the  old  chief;  and  it  was  a 
good  word  to  me. 


SOME  MEMORIES 


All  the  same,  I  am  wandering  from  my  text, 
and  must  go  on  to  say  that  my  lot  lay  with 
the  Abolitionists  to  the  wonder  of  the  kindly 
fellowship  of  the  saints  in  the  churches.  They 
were  alarmed;  those  men  and  women  were  in- 
fidels of  the  worst  brand;  I  was  touching  pitch 
and  must  needs  be  defiled.  The  time  came  soon 
when  I  spoke  at  their  meetings  in  the  city,  and 
went  forth  also  from  home  hither  and  yonder 
to  speak  on  the  holy  Sabbath  day.  It  was  a 
real  grief  to  them.  Some  spoke  to  me  sweetly 
about  this,  and  some  gave  me  the  cold  shoulder, 
for  which  I  could  not  blame  them.  In  a  mem- 
ory of  my  dear  friend  and  father  in  our  faith, 
Dr.  Furness,  printed  in  the  Christian  Register, 
I  told  of  the  debt  I  owe  to  him,  how  he  asked 
me  to  preach  for  him  in  his  absence,  and  I 
gladly  did  this.  It  was  the  last  proof  of  my 
decline  and  fall  from  grace.  I  never  cared 
for  what  we  call  dogma,  but  the  rumor  spread 
that  I  did  not  believe  any  more  in  the  doctrines 
so  precious  and  essential,  and  this  also  was  true, 
but  not  by  flat  denial  in  the  pulpit.  This  I  did 
not  feel  free  to  do,  but  preached  much  more, 
I  think,  about  the  life  that  now  is,  because  this 
was  what  always  lay  near  my  heart.  I  did  not 
do  many  things  they  thought  I  ought  to  do,  and 
[  7.1  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  fetters  hurt  me,  so  that  I  made  up  my  mind 
to  resign  as  a  local  preacher  at  the  coming  quar- 
terly conference  in  January,  1859. 

The  president  of  that  conference  is  the  pre- 
siding elder.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  clear 
the  murky  atmosphere,  and  asked  me,  with  no 
grain  of  unkindness,  if  I  would  answer  some 
questions  he  must  ask  me  by  request  of  the 
brethren,  who  feared  I  was  not  sound  in  the 
faith.  The  first  was,  Did  I  think  it  was  becom- 
ing my  standing  in  the  church  to  speak  from 
infidel  platforms  and  preach  in  an  infidel  pulpit  ? 
I  said  that  is  not  an  infidel  pulpit.  Then  there 
were  questions  about  doctrine  and  dogma,  the 
Trinity,  eternal  punishment,  and  total  deprav- 
ity, with  more  of  the  same  tenor.  I  said  "  No  " 
to  each  question.  Whereat  one  brother  cried  out, 
"  This  is  what  comes  from  going  with  them 
infidels."  I  said  also  I  had  come  to  the  con- 
ference bound  to  tell  them  where  I  stood  if  the 
presiding  elder  had  not  asked  the  questions,  and 
to  resign  from  my  office;  and  he  said,  not  un- 
kindly, "  There  was  no  help  for  it." 

And,  at  a  very  full  meeting  in  the  church  on 

the  Sunday  morning,  the  good  man  —  for  he 

was  good  —  told  the  people  what  had  come  to 

pass.     There  was  no  taint  on  me,  he  told  them, 

[72] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  no  shadow  save  this.  I  did  not  go  to  the 
meeting;  but  the  dear  helpmeet  was  there,  and 
told  me  there  were  moans  and  weeping.  I  was 
not  deprived  from  my  membership  in  the  church. 
I  still  hold  this,  and  may  touch  other  memories 
that  make  good  my  word  as  I  draw  near  to  the 
end  of  my  story. 


[73  ] 


You  may  imagine  that  I  was  glad  to  be  a  free 
man  when  the  elder  had  turned  the  key  on  the 
pulpits  I  must  enter  no  more,  and  in  some 
measure  this  was  true.  I  seemed  to  draw  a  long 
breath  when  all  was  over,  but  can  truly  say  I 
was  not  glad;  for  not  one  man  in  the  brother- 
hood held  out  his  hand  to  me  or  said  a  word, 
intimate  as  we  had  been  in  the  church  and  in 
our  homes  through  those  years.  I  went  out 
alone  and  lonesome. 

Alone  from  the  conference ;  but  the  dear  help- 
meet was  with  me  heart  and  hand  when  I  told 
her  of  that  which  had  come  to  pass,  good  Meth- 
odist as  she  was,  and  had  been  down  to  that 
day.  She  had  taken  me  for  better  or  worse, 
and  this  was  the  worse  if  she  had  only  married 
the  Methodist;  but  she  had  married  the  man, 
her  man,  and  so  after  a  few  tears  had  fallen  — 
how  tenderly  now  I  remember  the  tears  —  she 
began  at  once  to  turn  the  worse  into  the  better, 
while  this  was  not  because  she  had  faith  in  my 
misbeliefs  or  heresies,  but  because  she  had  faith 
[74  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


in  me.  She  was  well  aware  how  I  had  striven 
not  to  believe  in  the  branded  heresies  —  one 
or  more  among  the  brethren  had  used  another 
term  which  held  a  tang  of  brimstone  —  had  not 
striven  to  believe  them  any  more  than  I  had 
striven  to  grow  to  my  girth  and  stature;  for 
indeed  the  striving  for  a  good  while  lay  in  the 
other  scale.  She  knew  also  how  I  would  have 
loved  to  stay  in  the  old  warm  nest,  because  this 
would  be  also  the  safest;  but  it  was  not  pos- 
sible. The  old  shoemaker's  warning  had  come 
true,  about  "  wanting  to  reason  ower  mitch." 
John  Locke  says,  "  He  that  takes  away  Reason 
to  make  room  for  Revelation  puts  out  the  light 
of  both."  I  found  I  must  mind  the  light  and 
follow  it,  or  I  could  have  no  peace;  and  being 
still  a  preacher  I  must  make  the  good  confession 
or  I  could  have  no  honor  or  even  self-respect, 
and  this  the  good  helpmeet  said  I  must  do,  bid- 
ding me  be  of  good  cheer. 

One  memory  is  still  clear,  of  the  time  when 
I  quite  made  up  my  mind  to  leave  the  old  fellow- 
ship and  find  a  home,  if  I  could,  in  some  other 
church,  if  there  was  one  where  I  could  be  free 
to  speak  the  truth  as  it  should  be  given  me  to 
speak,  without  fear.  The  minister  in  charge 
had  "  got  up  a  revival  "  in  our  own  home  church 
[75  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


which  was  carried  on  for  some  time  week  nights 
and  Sundays.  I  was  not  in  close  sympathy  with 
the  movement,  but  went  to  the  meetings  all  the 
same  to  do  all  I  felt  free  to  do.  Preachers 
were  invited  from  the  city  to  lend  a  hand,  and 
among  the  rest  a  young  man  came  who  had  won 
a  name  among  us  as  a  revivalist,  and,  as  I 
found,  was  much  given  to  preaching  sermons 
fraught  with  lurid  fire;  and  in  the  last  sermon 
I  heard  from  him  he  closed  with  this  figure: 
"  If  you  could  hold  your  hand,"  he  said,  "  in 
the  flame  of  this  lamp  but  a  few  moments,  can 
you  imagine  the  agony  of  such  a  burning? 
But  this  is  no  more  than  a  faint  and  poor 
intimation  of  the  eternal  burning  in  the  fires  of 
hell  which  awaits  you  if  you  do  not  repent  — 
the  burning  not  for  a  few  moments,  but  for- 
evermore  —  and  some  sinner  now  in  this  church 
may  be  there  before  to-morrow  morning."  The 
sermon  turned  me  sick  of  heart.  I  wanted  to 
rise  and  say,  That  is  not  true,  not  one  word  of 
it.  I  brand  it  in  His  name  whose  mercy  en- 
dureth  forever,  and  in  the  name  of  his  Christ 
who  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost.  No  sermon  so  lurid  had  ever  been  preached 
before  in  my  hearing;  and,  when  the  young 
man  closed  with  the  words  I  hold  in  my  memory, 
[  76  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  old  minister  uttered  a  loud  amen,  and  the 
brethren  seemed  to  be  pleased  with  the  discourse. 
I  left  the  church  almost  instantly.  It  was  the 
sharp  turning-point  in  my  way  as  it  seems  to  me 
now.  I  had  always  believed  that  more  would 
find  their  way  into  heaven  than  my  church  was 
ready  to  admit  even  by  her  evangel  of  free 
grace,  so  I  was  not  considered  quite  sound  when 
we  would  talk  of  these  things  out  of  meeting; 
but  from  that  evening  my  heart  turned  toward 
the  larger  faith  and  hope  I  have  held  through 
so  many  years  without  dubitation  or  debate: 
I  could  not  do  otherwise.  And  yet  I  have 
touched  this  memory  for  another  reason  far 
more  welcome.  Fine  old  Thomas  Fuller  tells  of 
a  young  man  in  his  time  who  would  make  your 
hair  stand  up  and  your  heart  sink  down  when 
he  preached  one  of  these  sermons  full  of  the 
wrath  of  God;  but,  as  he  grew  older,  it  was 
noticed  he  grew  more  gentle,  and  said  his  damn 
with  a  difference.  So  I  hope  it  may  well  be 
true  now  of  the  young  man  whose  sermon  I  hold 
in  my  memory,  and  I  believe  beyond  all  question 
this  is  true  of  the  discourses  in  my  mother 
church.  I  love  to  go  now  and  then  to  hear  her 
ministers  of  mark  in  her  pulpits:  I  never  hear 
such  things  said  by  any  chance.  The  sermons 
[  77  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


as  a  rule  are  blended  of  sweetness  and  light: 
the  doctrine  of  free  grace  has  taken  on  larger 
and  more  gracious  meanings  in  sermons  and 
prayers.  Indeed  I  think  such  fireful  things 
are  only  to  be  heard  now  in  the  dark  places  of 
our  land.  One  of  these  I  did  hear  on  a  Sunday 
not  many  years  ago  when  I  was  coming  home 
on  the  steamer  from  my  motherland.  I  use  the 
word  in  no  harsh  or  evil  sen^e  when  I  say  the 
preacher  gave  us  hell;  for  indeed,  as  it  seemed, 
he  gave  us  nothing  else  that  evening.  And,  as 
we  walked  out  of  the  saloon,  a  lady  said  to  me, 
"  That  was  a  remarkable  sermon,  sir."  "  Yes," 
I  answered,  "  I  have  not  heard  one  I  can  com- 
pare to  it  in  many  years."  The  minister  — 
not  a  Methodist  —  was  from  South  Carolina 
and  so  was  the  lady,  as  I  learned. 


[78] 


XI 


Now  I  must  dwell  on  some  memories  which 
are  only  and  always  full  to  me  of  a  sweet 
satisfaction,  and  will  be  to  the  end.  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  should  never  stand 
in  one  of  those  pulpits  again.  The  old  mother 
had  done  with  me  for  good  —  or  bad  —  and 
all,  and  it  may  well  be  the  brethren  thought  so 
too  that  day.  I  am  now  close  to  the  memories 
of  our  life  in  Chicago,  where  for  more  than 
twenty  years  I  was  the  minister  of  the  Second 
Unitarian  Church.  The  church  was  burned  in 
the  great  fire  in  1871,  and  the  home  we  owned, 
as  well  as  almost  all  the  homes  in  our  parish. 
These  must  all  be  restored  as  they  were,  our 
home  among  them;  and  then  in  the  winter  of 
1872-73  I  went  into  the  lecture  field,  which 
was  very  fertile  in  those  days,  and  lectured  for 
six  months  from  Belfast  in  Maine  to  far  away 
in  Minnesota,  earning  the  money  thereby  to  lift 
the  mortgage  on  the  home. 

While  lecturing  in  Philadelphia,  I  went  out 
to  stay  over  Sunday  with  our  old  friends,  James 
[79] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  Lucretia  Mott,  who  lived  near  the  old  home 
church,  where  I  had  been  suspended  from  my 
ministry.  I  told  them  on  the  Sunday  morning 
I  would  go  to  the  church,  and  my  hostess  said, 
"  I  will  go  with  thee."  I  went  to  our  own  pew, 
while  Mrs.  Mott  sat  near  the  door  on  the 
women's  side;  and,  as  the  minister  then  in 
charge  passed  up  the  aisle,  she  "  gave  me  away," 
—  told  him  who  I  was  sitting  in  that  pew, — 
and  he  came  round,  held  out  his  hand,  and 
invited  me  most  earnestly  to  take  the  sermon, 
and,  if  I  pleased,  the  whole  service,  because  he 
knew  the  people  would  be  most  glad  to  hear 
me.  He  knew  about  the  old  trouble,  of  course, 
but  did  not  care.  I  did  not  want  to  preach 
that  morning,  and  said  so.  Then  he  said,  "  Will 
you  come  up  and  speak  to  them  when  I  am 
through?"  This  I  would  do  gladly;  and, 
when  the  sermon  closed,  he  said,  "  An  old  friend 
and  long-time  member  of  your  church  is  with 
us  this  morning,  who  has  promised  to  speak  to 
you,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  be  glad  to  hear 
him."  They  wist  not  who  I  was,  and  looked 
at  me,  as  I  still  remember,  with  a  touch  of 
wonder  in  their  eyes;  but,  when  I  began  to 
speak,  there  was  a  rustle  as  when  the  summer's 
breath  passes  over  the  ripening  wheat.  How 
[  80  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


happy  I  was  to  speak  to  them  once  more  from 
the  old  pulpit!  There  was  no  word  or  whisper 
of  the  break  between  us  some  fourteen  years 
before.  I  spoke  to  them  of  our  life  together 
in  the  old  time,  and  then  on  my  memories,  all 
sweet  and  good  now,  of 

"  The  kind,  the  true,  the  brave,  the  sweet, 
Who  walk  with  us  no  more," 

and  their  hearts  answered  to  mine  as  face  an- 
swers to  face  in  a  mirror.  Then  there  was 
the  last  hymn,  and  the  prayer  and  benediction, 
and,  when  I  came  down,  there  was  the  good 
warm  greeting  first  of  all  from  an  old  English- 
man and  dear  friend  who  rushed  up  to  me  with 
the  tears  in  his  eyes  and  said,  "  When  ye  got 
up  to  speak,  I  did  not  know  who  it  wer;  but, 
when  I  heerd  your  voice,  I  knew  you  right 
away,  and  said,  '  That's  brother  Collyer.' " 

Nor  was  this  a  mere  flash  in  the  pan.  After 
we  came  to  New  York  they  wrote  me  to  say 
they  wanted  to  raise  some  money,  and  would 
I  come  over  and  give  them  a  lecture  in  the 
church ;  and  I  was  glad  to  say  "  Aye,"  gave 
the  lecture  on  the  old  terms  of  the  local  preacher, 
and  got  them  quite  a  little  pot  of  money. 
Some  years  after  this  my  good  Albert  Engle 
[  81  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


died,  and  Mrs.  Engle,  with  the  family,  would 
fain  have  me  come  over  to  take  the  service  at 
his  funeral.  Albert,  you  will  remember,  was 
the  man  who  said,  "  Come  to  my  store  for  all 
you  need,"  in  the  panic  of  1857.  The  score 
had  long  ago  been  closed  of  debt,  but  not  my 
debt  of  gratitude.  I  went  over,  took  the  serv- 
ices, and  told  the  people,  who  had  come  from  far 
and  wide  —  for  he  was  held  in  great  esteem — 
what  he  had  done  so  long  ago  for  me  and  mine. 
I  stayed  over  the  Sunday,  and  went  in  the 
morning  to  our  old  home  church,  to  find  it  was 
their  communion  service,  at  which  the  minister 
asked  me  to  give  the  address.  I  was  glad  to 
do  this ;  but,  as  I  looked  over  the  congregation, 
I  saw  only  one  of  my  contemporaries  together 
with  the  old  friend  who  had  been  my  near 
neighbor  when  I  must  leave  the  church.  The 
rest  had  "  fallen  on  sleep."  Yet  I  saw  many 
faces  I  had  loved  to  see  there  so  long  ago, 
not  with  my  eyes,  but  my  heart  sight,  as  we 
all  do.  I  was  in  full  fellowship  again  in  the  old 
home  church.  Those  I  had  left  as  children 
were  mature  men  and  women  now  in  homes  of 
their  own,  and  I  was  still  Brother  Collyer. 

There,  in  the  church-yard,  were  the  stones 
of  memorial  over  the   graves,  and  very  near 
[  82  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


where  I  stood  the  dust  of  the  little  maid,  who 
was  taken  to  dwell  with  the  angels  fifty  years 
ago  now  —  our  first  great  sorrow  —  our  angel 
Agnes  from  that  time ;  and  the  twins  which  were 
born  after  lay  there  also:  they  were  only  a  day 
old  when  they  were  taken.  So,  when  we  set  up 
our  stone  of  memorial  over  the  little  graves,  we 
had  given  them  no  names,  and  had  engraven  on 
the  stone  these  "  whose  names  are  written  in 
heaven."  One  memory  more  must  close  this, 
shall  I  call  it,  chapter. 

I  was  on  the  Sound  steamer  last  summer, 
going  east,  and,  sitting  by  a  gentleman  who 
lives  in  the  South,  we  talked  about  many  things, 
and  among  them  some  word  was  said  about 
Ogontz,  once  Shoemakertown,  where  we  had 
lived  so  long.  He  did  not  even  suspect  who  I 
was,  and  began  to  tell  me  things  about  myself, 
asking  me  if  I  knew  this  ego.  I  said  I  had 
known  him  a  long  while,  had  indeed  lived  there 
once  for  some  time.  And  he  told  me  he  was 
quite  apt  to  go  there  when  he  came  North,  that 
some  little  children  of  mine  —  Mr.  Collyer's  — 
were  buried  in  the  church-yard  at  Milestown, 
and  he  always  went  to  look  at  their  graves. 
So  I  must  needs  tell  him  who  I  was,  and  say 
some  fitting  word  out  of  my  heart  to  the  good 
[  83] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


man, —  a  sort  of  free  minister,  as  I  found, 
among  the  Quakers,  very  much  given  to  think 
his  own  thoughts  and  take  his  own  way. 

But  now  another  very  dear  memory  clasps 
hands  with  these  over  which  I  have  lingered.  A 
longing  took  me  to  have  the  same  welcome  in 
the  motherland  and  the  churches  there,  where  I 
began  to  preach  in  the  later  forties.  I  was  get- 
ting on  in  years,  had  crossed  the  sea  six  times  to 
see  the  kinsfolk  and  old  friends,  to  wander  over 
the  moors  and  along  the  green  lanes  so  familiar 
still,  to  hear  the  skylark  singing  in  the  lift  of 
the  blue,  drop  in  to  see  the  old  friends  who  were 
left,  and  eat  a  bit  of  haver  cake  if  there  was  any 
hanging  on  the  bread  flake, —  to  be  a  boy  again, 
and  then  the  young  man  to  whom,  as  my  faith 
stands  also,  the  Lord  said,  "  Get  thee  out  of  thy 
country,  and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy 
father's  house,  unto  a  land  which  I  will  shew 
thee."  And  on  every  visit  I  had  met  old  friends, 
members  of  the  churches,  who  were  right  glad 
to  see  me  I  was  sure ;  but  on  each  visit,  the  num- 
ber was  still  less,  they  had  gone  to  their  rest, — 
"  out  of  the  body  to  God." 

And  always  I  had  preached  in  our  own  church 
in  Leeds,  one  of  the  best  in  our  denomination, 
and  most  prosperous,  as  well  as  in  other  churches 
[  84] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


of  our  order  far  and  wide,  so  that  I  was  quite 
well  known,  and  might  perhaps  be  entitled  to 
the  term  an  old  man  used  in  Western  New 
York,  who  came  forward  after  a  lecture  and 
said,  "  I  should  like  to  shake  hands  with  you, 
sir:  you  are  quite  notorious  in  these  parts." 
We  shook  hands  forthwith. 

This  was  the  situation  when  five  years  ago 
last  summer  I  wanted  to  cross  the  sea  once  more, 
it  may  well  be  for  the  last  time, —  crossed  with 
the  longing  which  had  not  abated,  but  with  no 
hope  that  it  would  be  made  good.  I  had  never 
whispered  my  desire  to  any  man  or  woman  in 
the  old  communion,  or,  so  far  as  I  remember,  to 
any  other  man  or  woman,  while,  if  I  had  told 
my  secret  to  any  friend,  and  he  had  asked  me 
to  name  the  churches  in  the  old  communion  in 
which  I  would  love  of  all  things,  or  churches,  in 
the  world  to  be  heard,  I  should  have  answered, 
These  three, —  the  old  meeting-house  in  Adding- 
ham  where  I  made  my  first  effort  and  came  to 
grief;  the  church  in  Ilkley,  where  I  bid  fair  to 
make  a  good  rail  to  stop  the  gaps ;  and  the  small 
meeting-house  on  the  hill  in  the  hamlet  where  I 
was  raised.  Our  family  had  left  many  years 
before,  but  was  still  remembered  in  here  and 
there  a  home.  These  would  have  been  my  first, 
[  85] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and,  indeed  my  only,  choice,  while  this  is  now 
mJ  j°y  and  my  wonder, —  that  I  was  invited 
to  preach  in  these  three  and  no  fourth,  as  if 
they  alone  had  known  my  secret.  About  a  week 
after  I  arrived  in  Leeds  a  gentleman  came  with 
the  invitation  from  the  first  I  have  named,  and 
would  not  hear  me  when,  like  a  maiden  who 
receives  a  proposal  from  the  man  she  loves  and 
means  of  course  to  accept,  I  was  a  little  shy, 
saying  I  was  a  Unitarian,  and,  if  I  preached  for 
them,  it  would  make  trouble,  and  so  on.  He 
just  whistled  my  words  down  the  wind.  This 
was  all  settled,  he  said.  The  senior  minister  had 
said  I  should  be  right  welcome,  so  had  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  so  I  said,  "  All  right,"  and  took  the 
service.  It  was  a  great  congregation,  filling 
the  old  chapel  to  the  doors,  if  I  might  judge 
from  what  an  old  friend,  a  stone  delver,  whose 
tools  I  made  and  sharpened  fifty  years  before, 
said,  who  told  me  he  came  to  "  t'  chapel,  but 
couldn't  git  in."  Then  the  senior  minister,  Rev. 
Joseph  Dawson,  wrote  me  from  Ilkley,  where 
they  had  built  a  noble  church  and  where  I 
preached  on  the  Sunday  before  we  started  to 
find  our  new  home,  bidding  the  old  friends  good- 
bye. He  invited  me  most  cordially  to  come 
and  preach  for  them,  and  to  be  his  guest  in  the 
[  86  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


manse.  I  stayed  with  him  and  his  good  sunny- 
hearted  helpmeet  three  days,  and  we  communed 
together  like  brothers  beloved ;  and,  as  when  the 
priest  from  Canada  stayed  with  Eliot,  the  apos- 
tle to  the  Indians,  he  says  it  was  delightful  to 
find  how  much  of  the  divine  truth  they  held  in 
common,  so  I  felt  when  I  stayed  those  three 
days,  all  too  brief,  at  the  manse. 

I  have  always  kept  in  rather  close  touch  with 
my  old  town,  so  that  after  the  forty-eight  years 
I  was  no  stranger.  Many  old  friends  had  gone 
and  few  were  left,  but  the  new  and  the  old  gave 
me  as  great  welcome  as  my  heart  could  desire. 

There,  on  the  hill  in  the  small  chapel,  where 
no  man  remembered  me,  and  only  one  woman, 
who  went  to  her  rest  when  this  new  year  came  in, 
there  was  the  same  heart-whole  welcome.  This 
is  the  story  of  what  came  to  pass  in  the  old 
mother  church  I  had  left  in  sorrow  that  it  must 
be  so,  and  was  welcomed  just  as  I  was  and  had 
been  through  the  many  years  to  the  good  old 
mother's  home  and  heart.  And,  as  I  turned  my 
face  hitherward,  I  said,  "  I  have  had  my  heart's 
desire." 


[  87  1 


XII 

I  wonder  whether  it  was  wise  to  wander  away 
from  these  memories  in  my  last  script,  as  they 
follow  each  other  in  strict  sequence,  to  tell  you 
how  the  desire  of  my  heart  was  given  me  in 
that  warm  welcome  at  the  old  home  church  at 
Milestown  once  and  again,  and  then  in  the  three 
churches  of  the  old  faith  and  fellowship  with 
which  my  life  was  blended  in  the  motherland. 

The  truth  is  the  impulse  to  do  this  there  and 
then  was  not  to  be  resisted  or  to  save  them  for  a 
final  chapter.  It  overcame  me,  as  when  we  want 
to  go  at  once  and  tell  dear  friends  about  some 
stroke  of  good  fortune  that  has  come  to  us  we 
did  not  hope  for  that  will  make  more  sweet  and 
fruitful  the  whole  tenor  of  our  life. 

The  warm  welcome  was  given  to  me  just  as 
I  was  and  must  be  in  faith  and  fellowship  to 
the  end  of  my  life, —  the  boon  I  longed  for, 
but  must  not  ask  for;  while  it  may  be  this  was 
one  fair  reason  that  in  all  the  years  of  my  min- 
istry since  I  became  what  I  am  I  had  said  no 
[  88  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


word  I  can  now  remember  against  the  mother 
church  or  the  faith  she  holds  and  maintains. 
The  story  is  told  of  an  old  lady  at  Brighton  in 
England  who  was  so  wrought  up  by,  a  sermon 
she  heard  against  the  Quakers  in  the  early 
times  that  she  broke  the  windows  of  their  meet- 
ing-house with  her  Bible  as  she  went  home.  I 
could  never  use  my  Bible  for  such  a  purpose, 
even  to  crack  a  pane.  John  Wesley  was,  and 
is  still,  my  Saint  John  of  the  later  time.  In- 
deed there  is  a  sermon  somewhere  in  the  barrel, 
in  which  I  have  tried  to  tell  the  great  and 
beautiful  story  of  his  life,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
told  in,  say,  forty  minutes,  with  no  ifs  or  buts 
from  the  first  sentence  to  the  last,  and  in  praise 
of  the  church  he  founded,  which  has  been  and 
is  now  one  of  the  grandest  forces  in  the  reli- 
gious life  of  our  common  Christendom,  as  I 
most  surely  believe.  To  say  this  was  the  main 
reason  why  I  left  the  home  in  the  lane  where 
we  sat,  my  wife  and  I,  that  evening,  when  the 
key  had  been  turned  on  the  pulpits,  and  when 
there  was  no  word  or  look  of  blame  from  the 
brave  and  true  helpmeet,  but  only  of  good 
cheer.  Ten  years  before,  when  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  to  emigrate,  and  some  months  after 
we  had  found  each  other,  the  memory  has  «1- 
[  89  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ways  dwelt  in  my  heart  of  an  evening  when  I 
said  to  her,  after  much  debate  in  my  own  mind: 
"  We  cannot  foresee  what  will  be  our  fortune 
when  we  have  crossed  the  sea.  It  may  be  hard 
for  us  to  get  a  good  start,  and  I  can  stand  it; 
but  you  have  been  used  to  a  softer  and  more 
gentle  life.  And  so,  if  you  think  it  will  be  best, 
we  will  bid  each  other  good-bye  at  the  church- 
door  or  in  your  home  when  we  are  married. 
Then,  when  I  am  in  good  work  and  can  make 
a  home,  I  will  come  over  for  you  or  you  can 
come  over  to  me,  as  we  think  best."  I  can  never 
forget  that  evening  as  we  stood  under  the  stars 
—  my  right  hand  could  sooner  forget  its  cun- 
ning—  how  there  was  silence  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  then,  with  no  preface,  she  answered 
me  in  these  words  from  the  lovely  idyl  in  the 
holy  book :  "  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go ; 
whither  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge;  thy  people 
shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God; 
whither  thou  diest,  I  will  die,  and  there  will  I 
be  buried:  the  Lord  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also, 
if  aught  but  death  part  thee  and  me."  The 
time  came  soon  after  this  evening  for  the  wed- 
ding, when  we  made  the  vows  in  the  presence 
of  the  minister  and  friends;  but  I  have  often 
thought  the  words  said,  as  we  stood  under  the 
[  90  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


stars,  were  still  more  sacred  to  me  than  those 
we  said  in  the  church. 

The  words  were  not  said  again  that  evening 
when  I  came  home  from  the  conference  or  ever 
again,  because  there  was  no  need:  it  would  be 
a  vain  repetition.  Some  old  friends  who  were 
not  in  the  church  came  also  to  cheer  me  and 
ask  me  to  hold  a  service  in  a  small  hall  they 
could  hire,  for  they  were  not  content  that  I 
should  preach  no  more;  but  I  was  not  prepared 
to  begin  again  on  my  own  account  or  theirs. 
Still,  I  agreed  to  hold  one  service,  the  first  or 
the  farewell,  and  speak  to  those  who  would 
come  to  hear  me  of  some  things  that  lay  near 
my  heart;  and  the  service  was  held  on  the  next 
Sunday,  the  first  and  the  last  in  the  valley  for 
many  a  year. 

In  Scotland  they  say,  "  When  one  door  steeks, 
anither  opens,"  and  within  a  month  one  opened 
I  could  not  have  dreamed  of  which  has  never 
been  closed  in  these  forty-five  years  to  the  very 
week  when  I  pen  these  words.  Now  and  then 
on  a  Sunday  I  would  walk  into  the  city  to  hear 
my  dear  Father  Furness,  who  was  teaching  me 
many  things;  and  one  of  these  days,  when  I 
went  down,  there  was  a  stranger  in  the  pulpit. 
So  I  must  of  course  stay  and  hear  him.  It 
[  91  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


was  Dr.  Livermore,  the  editor  in  those  days  of 
our  New  York  organ,  the  Christian  Inquirer, 
and  he  had  come,  I  think,  on  the  double  errand 
to  give  Brother  Furness  a  labor  of  love  and 
then  to  hunt  up  —  or  hunt  down  —  subscribers 
for  the  paper,  which  amounts  to  about  the  same 
thing.  Dr.  Furness  introduced  me  to  the 
preacher  after  the  service,  and  asked  me  to  go 
home  to  dinner  with  him,  whereat  I  did  not  begin 
to  make  excuses  with  the  men  in  the  Gospels 
who  were  invited  to  the  great  supper,  but  went 
gladly. 

This  was  some  time  before  I  came  to  grief  in 
the  conference.  We  talked  of  many  things  in 
the  afternoon,  then  I  went  home;  and  in  the 
week  after  I  had  spoken  in  the  hall  a  note  came 
from  Dr.  Furness,  asking  me  to  come  on  the 
next  Sunday.  So  I  went,  with  no  dream  of 
what  he  wanted  to  see  me  for  any  more  than  the 
babe  unborn.  It  was  to  consult  me  about  a 
letter  he  had  received  from  Chicago  and  from 
our  Unitarian  church.  "  The  church,"  he  said, 
"  employs  a  minister-at-large  to  help  the  poor 
in  their  city.  The  man  they  have  employed 
has  broken  down  and  can  do  no  more,  and  now 
they  want  a  man  to  take  his  place.  They 
wrote,"  he  continued,  "  to  Dr.  Livermore,  ask- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ing  him  if  he  could  help  them  to  find  a  man 
in  the  East  who  could  fill  the  gap.  And  in 
his  answer  he  told  them  to  write  me  about  a 
young  blacksmith  he  met  here  one  Sunday,  a 
Methodist  local  preacher  of  a  liberal  mind  and 
make,  who  might  be  the  man  they  wanted.  So 
they  wrote  to  me,  and  I  answered  their  letter; 
and  here  is  the  letter  they  have  sent  you  in  an- 
swer to  mine.  Will  you  take  it  home,  think  it 
well  gver,  and  then  come  again  next  Sunday 
and  tell  me  what  you  will  do  ?  " 

The  letter  held  a  hearty  invitation  to  come  out 
to  Chicago  and  take  charge  of  their  ministry- 
at-large  to  the  poor,  with  due  instructions  about 
what  my  work  would  be.  I  read  the  letter  care- 
fully, and  then  said :  "  I  do  not  need  a  week, 
sir,  to  make  up  my  mind  and  consult  with  the 
mother.  We  will  go." 

It  was  one  of  those  pregnant  moments  I  have 
told  you  of  before,  when  the  tide  must  be  taken 
at  the  turn  without  hesitation  or  debate.  The 
light  shone  again  on  the  way  I  must  go,  and 
this  was  all  I  needed  so  far,  while  I  was  sure 
the  mother  would  stand  true  to  the  vow  she 
made  as  we  stood  that  evening  under  the  stars ; 
and  so  it  was.  She  did  not  cast  a  pebble  in 
the  way,  but  said  "  Amen  "  right  heartily.  And 
[  93  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  began  to  inquire  about  this  far-away  city.  I 
am  not  sure  now  that  I  had  heard  one  word  about 
it,  and  am  quite  sure  that  Pekin  is  not  so  strange 
a  city  to  me  now  as  our  home  for  more  than 
twenty  years  was  then.  One  man  in  the  forge 
had  been  there,  I  found.  I  asked  him  to  tell 
me  all  he  knew  about  Chicago,  and  the  sub- 
stance of  his  knowledge  was  this:  the  place  was 
all  mud  when  he  was  there,  and  the  water  you 
had  to  drink  was  brought  from  the  lake  in 
barrels  and  peddled  from  house  to  house.  He 
was  only  there  a  few  weeks,  so  many  years  ago, 
and  then  he  cleared  out  and  came  East,  as  he 
thought  I  should.  My  employer  had  lived  in 
Illinois  when  he  was  a  younger  man.  He  had 
been  to  Chicago,  and  advised  me  not  to  go,  and 
said  also  for  my  comfort  that,  if  we  went,  we 
should  return,  and  he  would  keep  my  fire  for 
me  and  anvil;  for  this  I  thanked  him  kindly, 
but  said,  "  We  are  going  to  stay."  We 
talked  these  things  over  in  the  home,  and  began 
to  arrange  for  the  moving.  The  managers  of 
the  ministry-at-large  wanted  me  to  come  out 
at  once.  This  I  could  do ;  mother  said  she  must 
have  time  to  sell  the  household  goods  at  auction, 
have  everything  ship-shape  for  herself  and  the 
children,  and  then  come  out  to  me.  So  in 
[  94  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


February  I  went  West,  and  in  April  she  came 
with  the  children,  safe  and  sound,  and  would 
tell  me  to  the  last  how  good  James  Mott  and 
Lucretia  had  been  in  helping  her  to  get  a  good 
ready,  and  how  he  had  come  with  them  to  the 
train  and  said,  "  Now  is  there  anything  more 
thee  thinks  I  can  do?"  It  was  a  journey  of 
about  forty-four  hours  —  or  it  may  be  more  — 
in  those  days  from  Philadelphia  to  Chicago, 
with  no  Pullman  cars  or  their  like.  Mr.  Pull- 
man indeed  was  at  work  then,  or  soon  after, 
in  the  city,  raising  great  buildings  to  a  higher 
plane :  the  whole  Marine  Block,  I  remember,  was 
one  of  them,  and  another  was  the  Tremont 
Hotel.  The  grand  stroke  of  his  life  was  wait- 
ing in  his  good  brain  to  be  done,  and  make 
millions  of  folk  his  debtors.  But  there  we  were, 
all  safe  and  sound;  and,  when  the  mother  and 
children  came,  I  was  busy  at  the  work  they 
had  engaged  me  to  do  for  the  poor.  And  here 
is  a  rough  outline  of  my  work. 

I  must  look  after  the  poor, —  as  one  man  said, 
the  Lord's  poor,  our  own  poor,  and  the  devil's 
poor;  for  I  should  find  them  all  in  Chicago. 
Try  by  all  means  to  set  them  on  their  feet  and 
help  them  to  go  straight,  if  possible.  Find 
homes  for  girls  and  boys  on  farms  or  in  good 
C  95  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


homes  in  the  country,  where  their  work  would 
be  worth  their  home  and  education.  Hold  a 
night  school  and  a  Sunday-school,  mainly,  as  I 
found,  for  the  children  of  the  emigrants  who 
were  flocking  there  from  Germany  in  those 
times,  and  the  managers  would  give  me  all  the 
teachers  I  might  need. 


XIII 

It  was  welcome  work  for  me,  and  mother  was 
my  good  helpmeet  and  inspiration.  She  did 
not  lend  a  hand,  she  gave  it  for  keeps ;  and  she 
was  my  wise  monitor  in  the  time  of  need.  One 
memory,  the  most  sacred  of  all  now,  she  would 
forbid  me  to  touch  if  she  was  here  with  us  still. 
A  man  came  one  day  to  see  if  I  could  do  any- 
thing to  help  a  poor  girl  who  had  been  left 
in  a  wretched  den  to  die.  I  went  at  once  to  see 
her,  and  found  she  was,  as  we  say,  a  "  lost 
woman."  I  could  find  no  refuge  for  her  any- 
where in  the  city.  So,  when  I  came  home,  I  told 
mother  my  trouble.  She  was  silent  some  time 
after  I  had  said,  "  Can  you  do  anything? " 
And  then  she  answered :  "  There  is  only  one 
thing  we  can  do:  we  have  a  spare  room,  we 
must  take  her  in.  It  is  hard.  Here  are  the 
children;  but  we  can  keep  the  poor  creature 
apart  in  that  room,  and  I  will  look  after  her." 
So  this  was  done.  In  about  a  month  she  was 
well.  We  wanted  to  find  her  a  place  to  work. 
Mother  often  told  me  in  the  after  time  how  she 
[  97  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


had  spoken  to  her  about  the  life  she  had  lived 
and  the  life  she  might  live,  but  could  make 
no  impression  on  her  heart  or  mind.  She  left 
us,  with  no  thanks  even  when  she  was  well,  and 
went  to  her  own  place.  She  had  no  tears  to 
shed  at  the  feet  of  the  holy  one  of  God,  or 
box  of  ointment  to  break.  She  was  still  a  "  lost 
woman."  The  schools  prospered.  The  boys 
were  eager  to  learn  "  de  English,"  as  they 
would  tell  me:  then  they  would  be  American. 
This  was  their  great  purpose,  and  for  years 
after  I  gave  up  this  ministry,  when  they  were 
grown  men,  one  and  another  would  stop  me  on 
the  street  and  tell  me  they  were  my  old  scholars 
in  the  night  school  or  the  Sunday-school  when 
they  were  boys. 

And  now  another  memory  comes  to  me  which 
may  cast  a  gleam  of  light  on  our  success  in 
the  Sunday-school,  and  on  the  way  they  learned 
their  lessons.  One  of  the  classes  had  been  work- 
ing their  way  through  the  life  of  Moses,  from 
his  infancy  to  his  call  to  be  the  deliverer  of 
the  tribes  from  their  bondage.  I  had  noticed 
how  one  bright  boy  would  wrestle,  head  well 
down,  with  the  story.  So  I  picked  him  out  one 
Sunday  to  see  how  much  he  had  learned,  and 
here  are  the  questions  and  answers: — 
[  98] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"  What  have  you  learned  about  Moses,  my 
boy  ?  "  "  The  king's  daughter,  she  found  him 
when  he  was  a  baby,  in  a  box  in  the  rushes  down 
by  the  river,  and  took  him  home  to  nuss  him." 
"  Did  she  nurse  him  herself?  "  "  No,  she  hired 
a  woman  to.  nuss  him,  and  it  was  his  own 
mother ;  but  she  didn't  know  that."  "  And 
what  did  Moses  do  then?  "  "  He  grew  to  be  a 
man."  "  And  what  did  he  do  when  he  was  a 
man?"  "He  killed  another  man."  "Then 
what  did  he  do  ?  "  "  Buried  him  in  the  sand." 
"  What  did  he  do  after  he  had  buried  him  in  the 
sand?  "  "  He  run  away  and  went  to  keeping 
sheep  on  the  prairie."  "  Did  he  stay  there  all 
his  life?  "  "  No,  he  quit  that  because  he  saw 
a  bush  afire."  "  Did  that  scare  him,  so  that  he 
ran  away  and  left  his  sheep  ?  "  "  No,  some- 
thing talked  to  him  in  the  bush,  and  told  him 
to  go  back  home;  and  it  was  the  Lord  what 
talked  to  him."  "  And  what  did  the  Lord  say  ?  " 
"  He  told  him  to  take  his  boots  off."  And  here 
ended  our  lesson  on  the  early  life  of  Moses,  at 
which  I  smiled  and  said,  "  You  have  done  well, 
my  boy, —  very  well  indeed." 

So  the  schools  prospered,  and  in  some  fair 
degree  the  ministry  to  the  poor.  I  liked  my 
work,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  now,  would 
[  99  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


have  been  glad  to  go  right  on  with  it  to  the  end 
of  my  life;  but  this  was  not  to  be.  There 
is  an  inscription  over  the  main  doorway  of  the 
old  castle  at  Harewood,  some  miles  from  Ilkley, 
which  runs,  "  Vat  sal  be  sal."  I  think  of  it 
sometimes  as  I  muse  over  the  years, — "  What 
shall  be  shall," —  and  also  those  lines  of  Cardinal 
Newman  — "  A  strong  and  gentle  pressure  tells 
me  I  am  not  self -moving,  but  borne  upward  on 
my  way." 

Rev.  George  A.  Noyes  was  the  minister  of 
the  church  in  Chicago.  I  went  at  once  to  re- 
port my  arrival,  and  he  greeted  me  warmly, 
and  with  his  wife,  then  and  still  my  dear  friend, 
made  me  welcome  to  their  home  whenever  I  was 
pleased  to  come.  He  also  asked  me  to  preach 
for  his  people  on  the  second  Sunday  after  I 
arrived.  This  was  a  risk,  but  he  took  it,  the 
dear  good  fellow!  But  there  I  was  less  than 
a  month  from  my  anvil  and  fire,  with  horny 
hands  and  not  very  fair  to  see  after  all  the 
scrubbing. 

My  heart  was  in  my  mouth,  as  we  say,  and 
the  word  was  not  written.  It  was  something 
from  the  text,  "  They  joy  before  thee  accord- 
ing to  the  joy  in  harvest," —  a  word  I  had 
said  in  the  home  church  when  I  was  in  good 

[  100  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


standing.  There  was  no  such  help  from  on 
high  as  that  which  came  to  me  on  the  moorside 
and  in  the  small  schoolhouse.  Still  there  were 
those  in  the  church  who  would  tell  me  after 
many  years  how  they  still  remembered  the  ser- 
mon. Please  do  not  think  I  am  blowing  that 
trumpet  again:  one  and  another  did  tell  me 
they  were  glad  to  hear  me  that  day,  and  this 
was  welcome;  for  you  see  it  was  in  some  sort 
my  "  trial  sermon,"  and  I  should  be  glad  to 
try  again,  as  I  presently  found  I  must. 

Brother  Noyes  —  for  this  he  was  —  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  resign  and  go  East.  He 
had  "  approved  himself  a  minister  that  needeth 
not  to  be  ashamed,"  and  I  was  present  in  a 
company  of  the  members  when  they  besought 
him  to  stay ;  but  he  said  he  must  resign,  and 
this  he  did  very  soon. 

Then  the  foretelling  of  the  old  miller  came 
true  about  the  spare  rail.  It  was  a  far  cry  in 
those  days  to  Boston,  where  the  church  must 
go  for  men  to  supply  the  pulpit  from  which 
again  they  might  choose  another  minister. 
Brother  Noyes  had  said  in  his  parting  words 
that,  while  the  pulpit  was  vacant,  he  was  glad 
to  say  here  was  a  man  —  meaning  me  —  who 
would  take  the  services;  and  I  will  not  tell 
[  101  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


you  what  he  said  besides.  They  sent  out 
good  men  from  New  England,  each,  if  I  remem- 
ber, for  a  month;  anl  I  heard  them  all,  to 
my  delight,  Dr.  Briggs,  Dr.  Thompson,  Dr. 
Sears,  Charles  Brigham,  Mr.  Woodbury,  Dr. 
Stebbins  of  Portland,  and  more  I  do  not  remem- 
ber, who  have  all  done  their  good  days'  work 
and  gone  to  their  rest.  But  between  those  who 
came  out  to  fill  the  pulpit  there  would  still  be 
gaps  when  the  supplies  did  not  meet  and  tie, 
and  then  they  would  fall  back  on  the  spare  rail 
they  had  always  with  them,  so  that  the  church 
was  never  closed  for  a  single  Sunday.  I  think 
the  church  paid  me  something  for  over  time, 
but  do  not  remember  what  it  was, —  all  I  was 
worth  no  doubt.  But  my  great  reward  lay 
in  the  sermons  I  heard  from  the  men  who  came 
out,  and  brought  of  their  best,  as  was  meet  and 
right.  These  were  of  a  worth  to  me  I  cannot 
estimate.  They  were  my  theological  school: 
each  one  had  his  message  and  his  lessons  for 
me,  and  how  greedily  I  drank  them  in,  to  be 
sure !  I  knew  what  I  did  not  believe  and  would 
not  preach ;  they  gave  me  great  and  noble  affir- 
mations and  some  insight  of  the  way  to  state 
them,  so  that  to  this  day  I  am  grateful  for 
what  I  learned  from  their  lips  and  their  hearts. 
[  102  ] 


XIV 

I  was  more  than  content  in  my  ministry-at- 
large.  The  church  gave  me  a  free  hand,  and 
my  heart  was  in  the  work.  Nor  did  I  care 
much  for  the  distinction  drawn  for  my  guidance 
between  God's  poor  and  the  others,  because  I 
could  not  make  it  work.  I  began  very  soon 
also  to  dream  of  a  religious  service  we  might 
hold  in  the  upper  room  where  we  held  the  week- 
night  and  Sunday  sessions  of  the  schools, —  a 
service  which  might  bloom  out  into  a  church  for 
my  poor;  but  this  was  not  to  be. 

Chicago  is  a  three-quarter  city,  or,  if  this 
term  touches  her  dignity,  we  will  say  a  three- 
sided  city, —  the  South  Side,  the  West,  and  the 
North.  The  first  church  of  our  name  was  built 
on  the  South  Side,  which  was  then,  and  is  still, 
the  centre  of  the  great  city,  and  had  grown 
strong  in  the  ministry  of  Brother  Rush  R. 
Shippen,  who  is  still  to  the  fore  with  the  eager 
heart  and  fervent  fire  of  his  earlier  years, —  no 
white  ashes  where  the  fire  was,  as  it  seems  to 
his  lovers  and  friends.  The  city  had  given 
[  103] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


to  each  denomination  the  land  on  which  to  build 
their  first  church  on  the  South  Side,  with  the 
proviso  that,  when  a  society  was  organized  on 
the  West  and  North  Sides  within  a  certain  time 
set  forth  in  the  grant,  they  should  each  have  one- 
quarter  in  land  on  which  to  build.  The  society 
on  the  North  Side  was  organized  in  1857,  to 
secure  the  lot  on  which  they  would  build  as 
soon  as  they  could  see  their  way;  but  they  had 
held  no  services,  though  they  had  sent  a  call, 
or,  it  may  be,  a  feeler,  to  Thomas  Starr  King 
in  Boston,  but  found  he  could  not  come  on  any 
terms.  You  heard  how  they  asked  me  to  take 
the  services  in  the  mother  church  after  Mr. 
Noyes  left  them,  when  the  supplies  from  New 
England  did  not  meet  and  tie.  The  members 
came  there  from  all  sides,  no  matter  who  was 
to  preach  —  the  good  members  —  and  heard  the 
minister-at-large  with  the  rest,  and,  as  they 
would  tell  me  afterward,  began  to  ask  each 
other,  as  they  went  home,  whether  it  would  not 
be  well  and  the  best  they  could  do  to  hire  some 
place  on  the  North  Side  in  which  to  hold 
services  on  Sundays  in  the  afternoon,  and  have 
me  take  charge  of  them. 

So  a  meeting  was  called,  in  which  they  re- 
solved to  begin  and  also  to  invite  me  to  take 
[   104   ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  charge,  looked  round  for  a  meeting-house, 
and  found  one  they  hired  from  the  Baptists, 
where  the  first  services  were  held  on  the  last 
Sunday  in  May,  1859;  and  here  once  more  my 
helpmeet  comes  in.  It  was  my  own  understand- 
ing that  I  should  take  these  services  as  a  supply 
to  see  what  could  be  done,  and  then,  if  there 
was  a  fair  prospect  of  success,  they  would  build, 
and  call  a  man,  well  endowed,  to  take  charge 
of  the  parish,  and  I  should  give  my  whole  time 
and  strength  to  the  ministry-at-large. 

We  had  talked  all  this  over  in  the  home,  and 
mother  was  willing  that  I  should  take  hold; 
but,  when  the  time  drew  near,  I  said  to  her: 
"  We  cannot  tell  what  will  be  the  result  of  this 
movement.  This  is  a  Unitarian  society.  I  am 
sure  I  am  no  longer  a  Methodist,  but  beyond 
this  I  am  in  a  mist.  I  must  preach  the  truth 
as  it  comes  to  me,  and  you  may  not  like  the 
sermons.  So  please  do  not  go  with  me  one 
step  farther  if  you  do  not  feel  free  to  do  so, 
but  stay  in  the  old  church."  This  was  about 
all  I  said,  and  she  answered  me  not  one  word 
there,  and  then  there  was  no  need:  she  had  said 
her  last  word  ten  years  before  as  we  stood  under 
the  stars.  But  now,  on  the  Sunday  afternoon 
when  I  came  out  of  our  room  ready  to  go 
E  105  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


my  lone  self,  if  I  must,  there  she  stood  in  the 
living-room,  and  turned  to  me  with  a  sweet 
smile  and  shining  eyes,  all  ready  to  fulfill  her 
vow  — "  Whither  thou  goest  I  will  go  " —  hat 
on,  gloves  on,  ready  before  I  was;  and  so  we 
went  together  hand  in  hand  through  the  thirty 
years  which  remained. 

This  was  in  the  spring  of  the  year.  The 
Western  Conference  was  held  that  year  in  Mil- 
waukee. I  went  to  the  conference,  and  I  found 
the  brethren  wanted  to  ordain  me  and  make 
me  a  full-fledged  minister  of  our  faith.  They 
did  not  ask  me  where  I  stood,  but  went  in  the 
face  of  the  apostle's  warning,  "  Lay  hands  sud- 
denly on  no  man  " ;  and  I  did  not  say  them  nay 
or  tell  them  I  was  ordained  already  by  the  good 
old  farmer  on  the  moorside.  My  friend  and 
brother  of  the  many  years,  Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo, 
preached  the  ordination  sermon;  but  who  took 
the  other  parts  I  do  not  now  remember.  Then 
the  president  of  the  conference,  Dr.  Hosmer 
of  Buffalo,  laid  his  hands  on  me,  and  blessed 
me  in  a  very  sweet  and  tender  prayer.  They 
had  asked  no  questions  about  my  beliefs.  I 
was  glad  for  this,  because  I  should  have  been 
puzzled  to  answer  them;  nor  did  any  man  try 
to  tell  me  what  I  should  preach  or  not  preach, 
[  106  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  I  was  glad  for  that,  because  I  wanted  to 
walk  free.  And  I  may  close  this  memory  with 
one  of  the  last  summer  when  I  fell  in  with  a 
gentleman  who  told  me  he  was  present  at  my 
ordination,  and,  talking  with  Dr.  Hosmer  about 
the  wide  door  they  had  opened  for  me,  the 
dear  old  saint  said,  Well,  I  had  talked  with  him 
before  the  conference,  and  found  I  did  not  want 
to  teach  him  anything  except  how  to  read  a 
hymn. 

I  came  home  to  take  hold  of  the  new  work 
and  do  the  best  I  could  for  the  infant  church 
and  my  ministry-at-large  (for  both  were  on  my 
hands),  and  so  far  as  I  remember  was  never 
tired. 

There  was  no  time  to  write  sermons.  Indeed, 
I  had  never  written  one  since  I  began  my  min- 
istry as  a  local  preacher.  The  sermons  were 
in  my  head  or  my  heart,  or  both;  but  I  had 
made  notes  after  I  came  to  Chicago  on  half  a 
sheet  of  note-paper,  to  help  me  keep  in  line. 
Good  old  Master  Fuller  says,  "  Some  young 
ministers  in  our  time  take  a  text  for  a  kind  of 
horse-block  wherefrom,  when  they  have  mounted, 
they  canter  away,  and  you  see  them  no  more 
until  they  dismount  at  the  end  of  the  sermon  " ; 
but  I  soon  found  this  would  not  do.  I  had  been 
[  107  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sitting  at  the  feet  of  those  ministers  from  New 
England,  and  learned,  as  I  listened,  that  I  must 
not  canter  away  from  my  text.  So  I  began 
to  make  my  skeletons,  and  trust  in  the  Spirit 
to  breathe  on  them  and  make  the  dry  bones  live. 
One  of  these  Sundays  I  well  remember,  an  Au- 
gust afternoon,  so  hot  that  I  wore  a  linen  duster. 
My  text  was  "  Enoch  walked  with  God,"  and 
the  dry  bones  lived  that  day.  I  wrote  the 
words  down  in  spare  moments.  It  was  the  first 
sermon  in  manuscript  I  ever  owned.  Some  who 
read  these  memories  may  have  seen  it  in  one  of 
my  books,  and  I  shall  preach  it  again  on  Sun- 
day. 

A  grandson  of  Dr.  Bancroft  told  me  that, 
when  his  grandsire  was  far  on  in  years,  he 
would  preach  an  old  sermon  to  his  people  in 
Worcester  when  the  humor  took  him  toward 
the  close  of  his  ministry  of  forty-one  years, 
but  made  no  note  of  day  or  year.  He  took  one 
for  this  purpose  on  a  Sunday  morning  he  had 
repeated  often  in  the  many  years,  but  had  for- 
gotten all  about  it,  and  said  to  one  of  his  deacons 
as  he  came  out  of  church,  "  How  did  you  like 
the  sermon,  sir?  "  "  Very  much,  doctor,"  the 
good  man  answered.  "  I  always  did  like  that 
[  108  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sermon."  So  I  suspect  the  elders  will  say  on 
Sunday,  or  hope  they  will. 

But  I  am  rambling  again,  and  must  return 
to  the  little  church  on  the  corner.  By  mid- 
summer in  this  first  year  the  society  had  made 
up  its  mind  to  build.  The  congregation  was 
growing,  and  new  families  were  added  to  the 
church,  so  we  were  much  encouraged.  The  lot 
was  bought,  the  plans  made,  the  builder  found, 
and  the  church  opened  for  dedication  on  Christ- 
mas Day,  when  Dr.  Hosmer  came  from  Buffalo 
to  preach  the  sermon  and  lay  his  benediction  on 
the  infant  church,  as  he  had  laid  it  on  me  at 
the  conference  in  the  spring.  Then  I  thought 
my  work  for  the  church  was  done,  and  I  must 
give  all  my  time  to  the  ministry-at-large.  So 
I  asked  the  trustees  to  meet  me  on  a  week-day 
evening,  and,  when  we  came  together,  told  them 
they  must  now  find  a  man  to  take  charge  of  the 
church  and  parish,  and  I  would  give  my  whole 
time  to  the  ministry-at-large,  but  would  lend  a 
hand  still  when  I  was  needed  in  both  churches. 

I  still  remember  their  surprise.     They  had 

not  thought  of  such  a  thing,  they  said.     The 

society  wanted  me  and  not  another  man.     I  told 

them  frankly  —  what  indeed  they  knew  in  some 

[  109  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sort  —  that  I  had  come  to  them  right  out  of  the 
forge  less  than  a  year  before,  had  no  education 
or  training  for  the  work  they  would  have  me 
do,  with  more  of  the  same  tenor,  but  could  not 
move  them.  Then  they  said,  "  Will  you  agree 
to  this  proposal, —  that  we  shall  write  to  any 
ministers  in  our  body  you  may,  name,  and  seek 
their  counsel  as  to  what  you  ought  to  do?  " 
I  agreed  to  this,  and  said  I  would  stand  to  their 
answer.  Four  men  were  named  —  Dr.  Eliot  of 
St.  Louis,  Dr.  Hosmer  of  Buffalo,  Dr.  Bellows 
of  New  York,  and  Dr.  James  Freeman  Clarke 
of  Boston  —  who  answered  with  one  consent 
that  I  must  take  the  church. 


[  110  ] 


XV 


So  I  was  "  called,"  with  due  form  and  cere- 
mony, to  be  the  minister  of  Unity  Church,  but 
with  more  fear  than  faith  that  I  should  be  able 
to  meet  the  demand,  and  said  one  day,  when 
fear  had  me  fast :  "  Mother,  I  think  it  was  a 
mistake  all  round.  In  a  year  from  now  I  shall 
not  have  another  word  to  say.  It  will  be  drop- 
ping buckets  into  empty  wells."  She  must  have 
been  busy  and  did  not  want  to  be  bothered  with 
my  moods ;  for  I  see  her  turn  to  me  with  some- 
thing in  her  hand  she  is  still  doing,  and  she 
says :  "  Don't  bother  me  with  such  nonsense ! 
Yours  is  not  a  cistern:  it  is  a  living  spring. 
Keep  it  running  clear  and  deepen  your  well 
when  you  must,  and  you  will  have  more  to  say 
in  a  year  from  now  than  you  have  ever  had  be- 
fore in  your  life."  So  the  natives  in  the  South 
Sea  Islands  say  of  a  missionary  who  has  such 
a  helpmeet,  "  He  is  a  two  right-hand  man." 

We  found  an  assistant  for  the  ministry-at- 
large,  a  good  trained  woman,  who  could  not  only 
help  me,  but  teach  me  some  good  lessons.  So 
[  111  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  work  went  on  nicely  through  the  winter,  to 
my  pure  content;  and  then  along  in  the  heart 
of  June  my  ministry  took  on  a  wider  meaning. 

A  tornado  or  cyclone,  or  both,  had  swept 
through  Iowa,  with  a  besom  of  destruction  to 
life  and  life's  values.  The  good  heart  of  our 
city  responded  at  once  to  the  cry  for  succor. 
You  may  still  trust  Chicago  to  do  that.  The 
Board  of  Trade  formed  a  committee  of  its 
members  to  take  action,  money  was  subscribed 
swiftly  —  a  large  sum  for  those  days  —  and, 
being  what  I  was,  they  asked  me  to  take  charge 
of  the  money  and  go  over  into  Iowa  to  help 
them. 

I  went  at  once  —  the  church,  then  and  al- 
ways, was  glad  to  let  me  go  on  these  errands  — 
and  touched  the  track  of  the  destroyer  first  at 
the  pretty  town  of  Camanche,  where  my  heart 
ached  at  what  I  saw  and  heard  of  the  ravage, 
and  from  thence  took  a  wagon  and  went  west- 
ward on  the  zigzag  out  to  Cedar  Rapids,  ask- 
ing, as  we  went  along,  for  those  in  sore  dis- 
tress, and  helping  them  from  my  store.  This 
is  no  place  to  tell  the  story  of  the  great  dis- 
aster. I  told  it  at  some  length  in  a  sermon 
when  I  got  home,  but  that  was  burnt  in  the 
great  fire,  with  many  more.  But  two  memories 

I  "*  1 


SOME  MEMORIES 


still  stand  clear, —  one  of  a  woman  that  holds 
a  gleam  of  humor,  and  the  other  of  a  man  who 
made  good  the  scripture,  "  A  wise  man  seeth 
the  danger,  and  hideth  himself."  The  rest  I 
need  not  cite.  The  woman,  they  told  me,  had 
been  sadly  hurt,  and  was  staying  at  such  a  farm 
in  Eden  township.  I  went,  and  found  her  lying 
helpless  in  her  room,  and  held  out  my  hand,  as 
I  told  her  my  errand.  She  did  not  lift  her  hand, 
but  said,  "  I  am  so  sorry,  sir,  but  both  my 
arms  are  broken."  Then,  as  we  chatted  (for 
she  was  a  cheerful  soul)  she  told  me  of  her  life. 
"  I  am  alone,"  she  said,  "  and  go  out  nursing 
for  my  living,  and  was  getting  on  real  nice,  so 
that  I  had  saved  money  to  buy  a  new  dress. 
It  was  a  barege,  real  barege;  and  it  was  not 
made  up.  But  the  house  where  I  was  staying  was 
blown  all  away,  and  my  dress  —  I  do  not  know 
where  it  went,  nobody  can  tell  me;  and  it  was 
real  barege,  the  first  I  ever  had  " —  And  then 
she  quite  broke  down.  I  comforted  her  the  best 
I  knew,  and  one  pleasant  gleam  rests  on  the 
small  room  to  this  day.  I  made  sure  she  should 
have  a  new  dress, —  real  beyond  all  question. 

My  wise  man  was  a  farmer,  who  had  pros- 
pered by  deserving,  I  was  sure,  so  that  he  had 
been  able  to  build  a  new  house  of  brick ;  but  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


tornado  had  literally  crushed  the  brick  into 
small  fragments  and  wrecked  everything  about 
the  place,  which  was  strewn  with  the  fragments 
and  splinters,  and  the  tires  of  the  wagon  wheels 
were  twisted  as  if  some  strong  machine  had 
twisted  them  round  and  about.  My  man  was 
there  alone,  the  mother  and  family  were  shel- 
tered in  another  home  beyond  the  line  of  the 
storm,  which,  by  the  way,  was  hardly  more  than 
half  a  mile  wide  anywhere. 

"  You  were  not  hurt  then,"  I  said,  "  or  the 
wife  and  children?"  "No,"  he  answered  very 
quietly,  as  one  still  in  the  shadow  of  a  great  awe, 
"  and  I  will  tell  you  why.  When  we  came  here, 
the  Indians  used  to  tell  about  these  tornadoes; 
and  we  have  had  bad  storms,  but  nothing  like 
this  before.  And  I  would  think  the  thing  over 
and  wonder  what  we  should  do  if  one  came  along. 
Well,  it  came  to  me  sudden,  one  day,  what  to 
do.  You  see  that  sort  o'  cave  in  the  rise  near 
by?  That  was  the  idee  that  came  to  me.  We 
would  dig  in  there  and  make  a  root  house  with 
a  good  strong  door.  Then,  if  the  [something 
I  will  not  spell]  did  not  jump  on  us  too  sudden, 
we  would  rush  in  there  and  shet  the  door.  Well, 
things  began  to  look  skeery,  sir,  in  the  week  be- 
fore that  Sunday  afternoon,  up  above,  and  it 


SOME  MEMORIES 


was  stifling  on  the  prairie,  so  I  began  to  look 
out  for  squalls.  I  had  told  '  my  woman  '  how 
I  felt,  and  warned  her  to  be  ready  with  the  chil- 
dren if  the  thing  should  come  along.  Well, 
about  three  o'clock  I  was  setting  on  that  hump 
a-watching,  and  all  to  once  I  see  her  away  out 
yonder,  comin'  whirlin'  head  on,  black  and 
angry,  and  I  ran  and  shouted,  '  Ma,  here  she 
comes ! '  She  was  ready  with  the  children. 
There  was  no  time  to  spare.  We  rushed  for  the 
root  house  and  shet  the  door.  She  could  not 
hurt  the  rise  and  slid  past  the  door.  First  there 
was  a  roar,  and  then  it  was  still,  and  then  an- 
other roar;  but  we  were  safe  in  the  root  house, 
and,  when  we  came  out,  things  were  what  you 
see." 

They  tell  of  an  Englishman,  who  came  over 
sea  to  see  how  we  fared,  and,  coming  to  Chicago, 
exclaimed,  "  Well,  she  beats  her  own  brag ! " 
And  that  is  true,  for  the  double  reason,  first, 
of  her  marvellous  growth,  and  then  because  she 
brags  no  more.  Forty-five  years  ago  in  this 
week  when  I  came  there,  she  was  lifting  herself 
out  of  the  mud,  where  the  need  was,  seven  feet, 
the  buildings,  as  I  have  said,  with  jack-screws 
worked  by  the  might  of  Irish  labor  —  houses, 
banks,  stores,  and  hotels  —  while  the  inmates 


SOME  MEMORIES 


stayed  about  their  business  just  the  same,  and 
the  spaces  in  the  streets  were  brought  up  to  the 
new  level.  The  population  in  1860  was  one 
hundred  and  nine  thousand,  and  she  was  alive 
to  the  tips  of  her  fingers  and  the  core  of  her 
heart  and  brain.  I  had  lived  in  the  country  all 
my  life,  and  when  I  came  there  was  thirty-six 
years  of  age.  The  life  in  a  city  was  a  new  life, 
and  I  caught  something  of  the  strong  inspira- 
tion. The  rune  runs,  "  God  made  the  country, 
and  man  made  the  town."  The  rune  is  not  true. 
Every  great  city  hath  foundations  whose  builder 
and  maker  is  God.  We  come  to  the  strong  and 
vital  cities  to  find  ourselves:  this  was  what  be- 
fell me  in  going  to  Chicago.  There  was  a  chal- 
lenge in  the  strong  and  headstrong  life  I  must 
answer.  Evil,  yes,  but  good  also  to  match,  and 
more  than  match.  And  well  the  fine  old  Scotch- 
man says:  — 

"  Evil  is  here  that  we  may  make  it  good, 
Else  had  good  men  on  earth  scant  work  to  do. 
What  would  you  have  ?     In  Paradise,  no  doubt, 
Weeds  grandly  grew,  and  Adam  plucked  them  out." 

How  good  the  years  have  been  as  I  look  back- 
ward now,  and  none  more  full  of  pure  satisfac- 
tion than  those  twenty   years  in  the  mighty 
C  116] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


young  city!  I  wist  not  what  lay  before  us  of 
sorrow  and  joy,  loss  and  gain.  I  thank  God 
for  that,  as  I  sit  here  in  the  silence,  sure  in  my 
soul  that  through  all  the  mishaps,  the  mistakes, 
and  the  failures  more  than  I  can  number,  "  He 
has  led  me  all  my  life  long."  Of  these  years 
I  shall  try  to  tell  the  story  as  the  memories 
touch  me, —  of  the  new-born  church  in  the  great 
conflict  for  the  solidarity  of  the  republic  and 
the  extinction  of  slavery,  her  steadfast  contin- 
uance in  well-doing  and  then  in  the  great  con- 
flagration, when  the  church  and  the  homes  were 
destroyed,  to  be  rebuilt  again  and  established. 
Of  these  things  I  should  have  told  the  story,  al- 
ready, but  have  been  allured  to  linger,  it  may  be 
to  small  purpose;  but  I  did  want  to  tell  you 
how  I  came  to  be  the  minister  of  Unity  Church 
through  the  wide  door  and  the  warm  and  strong 
welcome. 


XVI 

I  was  lured  away  last  week  from  the  true  se- 
quence of  these  memories  of  the  time  when  the 
telegram  told  us  in  Chicago  of  the  shot  fired  on 
Fort  Sumter  —  which  was  also  heard  round  the 
world  —  and  of  the  answer  our  lusty  and  loyal 
young  city  made  to  the  challenge.  The  news 
came  there  on  the  Sunday  morning.  The  answer 
was  given  in  that  week,  when  our  city  spake,  and 
on  the  next  Sunday  by  the  loyal  churches  and 
their  ministers ;  and  you  would  not  have  doubted 
for  a  moment  where  our  own  church  stood  when 
you  went  indoors  that  morning.  You  could  not 
see  the  pulpit:  it  was  wrapped  about  in  a  great 
flag,  and  there  was  another  behind  the  minister. 
The  organ  at  the  other  end  was  also  hung  all 
about,  while  others  hung  from  the  iron  rods  set 
under  the  ceiling  to  hold  the  frame  well  to- 
gether. I  did  not  like  those  rods  at  all,  and  had 
branded  them  in  my  mind  as  an  instance  of  some 
Dutch  deformed  style  of  architecture ;  but  now 
they  looked  beautiful  to  me  because  of  the  ban- 
ners. 


I  had  ransacked  my  memory  and  Bible  for  a 
text  from  which  I  would  try  to  preach  my  ser- 
mon, and  found  it  in  these  words  of  the  Mas- 
ter,— "  He  that  has  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his 
garment  and  buy  one."  We  sang  for  the  first 
hymn  "  Before  Jehovah's  awful  throne,"  for 
the  second  "  America,"  closed  with  the  doxol- 
ogy,  and  then  after  the  benediction  we  sang 
"The  Star-spangled  Banner."  I  had  felt  a 
touch  of  dismay  over  the  way  our  people  did  not 
sing,  used  as  I  had  been  to  the  singing  in  our 
Methodist  chapels,  where  we  made  a  joyful  noise 
unto  the  Lord,  in  tune  or  out,  it  made  small  mat- 
ter. Here  my  people  with  but  a  very  few  ex- 
ceptions were  content  to  let  the  choir  do  the 
singing.  I  had  exhorted  them  to  make  the 
same  joyful  noise,  and  had  made  small  headway. 
I  had  been  given  to  understand  it  was  not  good 
taste.  So  James  Freeman  Clarke,  in  speaking 
of  this  in  our  conference,  had  said,  "  Such  good 
taste  will  be  the  death  of  us." 

But  that  morning  they  sang  as  if  they  would 
lift  the  roof  in  despite  of  the  iron  rods,  and  my 
soul  for  once  was  satisfied.  The  ice  was  broken 
by  that  cannon-ball  at  Sumter,  and  the  waters 
flowed  free.  It  was  the  first  time,  but  by  no 
means  the  last.  The  battle-cry  of  freedom  had 


SOME  MEMORIES 


set  the  people  free,  and  that  Sunday  evening 
the  young  men  enlisted  for  the  rush  down  to 
Cairo. 

In  the  summer  the  Sanitary  Commission  was 
organized, —  the  grandest  organization,  to  my 
own  mind,  the  world  has  ever  known  in  its  merci- 
ful ministration  for  the  sick  and  wounded  on 
the  battlefield,  in  the  hospitals,  or  wherever 
help  was  needed,  with  the  whole  loyal  nation  at 
work,  until  the  war  was  over,  piling  up  money 
and  supplies.  Dr.  Bellows,  the  minister  of  our 
church  —  All  Souls —  in  New  York,  was  beyond 
all  other  men  the  inspiring  soul  of  the  com- 
mission, and  its  president  to  the  end  of  its  most 
noble  life.  And  he  told  me  once  that,  when  they 
had  taken  the  first  steps,  he  went  to  see  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army,  to  tell  him  what 
they  proposed  to  do  through  the  commission. 
The  great  man  heard  him  with  a  chill  civility, 
with  no  word  of  approval,  and  said  finally, 
"  The  truth  is,  sir,  we  hate  your  philanthro- 
pists" ;  and  the  doctor  answered,  "  Well,  we  hate 
your  generals, —  you  mean  bogus  philanthro- 
pists of  course,  and  I  mean  bogus  generals." 
Then  he  went  forth  to  do  the  work  God  had 
given  him  to  do. 

He  sent  me  a  message  in  that  summer,  asking 
[  120  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


me  to  come  down  to  Washington  and  serve  on 
the  commission.  I  laid  the  matter  before  the 
church  on  the  Sunday  morning,  and  they  said 
with  one  voice,  "  Go ! "  So  I  went,  and  found 
my  work  would  be  to  visit  the  camps  where  "  all 
was  quiet  on  the  Potomac " —  this,  you  will 
know,  was  after  Bull  Run  —  look  well  into  their 
sanitary  condition,  and  report.  They  gave  me 
a  team  with  a  soldier  to  take  me  from  camp  to 
camp,  and  I  think  I  visited  them  all.  It  was 
not  pleasant  work,  but  the  colonels  were  pleas- 
ant and  helpful  men.  Many  memories  lie 
dormant  of  Washington  in  that  summer,  but 
they  do  not  touch  the  marrow  of  the  matter.  So 
I  will  only  tell  you  of  my  bad  scare.  I  was  to 
visit  a  camp  somewhere  towards  the  Maryland 
line.  It  was  on  a  sunny  Saturday  morning; 
and  I  remember,  as  we  went  past  the  White 
House  toward  the  bridge,  my  soldier  said,  "  See 
them  feet,  sir?  "  There  were  perhaps  half  a 
dozen  pairs  set  sole  towards  us  at  two  open  win- 
dows, and  my  man  said :  "  That's  the  Cabinet 
a-settin'.  See  the  big  feet  in  the  middle  o'  that 
window?  Them's  Old  Abe's."  How  sacred  the 
name  has  become  since  that  morning!  but  then 
this  was  the  term  in  common  use  among  the 
people. 


SOME  MEMORIES 


We  crossed  the  bridge  and  pointed,  as  my 
man  thought,  all  right  for  the  camp ;  but  after 
•ome  time  he  took  a  wrong  turn  in  the  woods, 
and  told  me  he  did  not  know  how  to  steer. 
"  Better  go  right  on,"  I  said.  "  We  shall  get 
out  of  the  woods,  and  then  we  can  take  our  bear- 
ings." He  went  on  for  a  while,  until  we  came 
to  an  opening  in  the  woods  and  saw  a  ridge  be- 
fore us  planted  with  cannon.  "  That's  a  rebel 
battery,"  he  whispered.  "  What'll  we  do?" 
"  Turn  round,"  I  whispered,  "  and  make  a  bee- 
line,  if  you  can,  for  the  river."  This  the  good 
fellow  did,  and  was  fortunate.  We  got  safely 
to  the  city,  and  told  the  story  of  our  hair-breadth 
escape  —  leastwise  I  did  —  with  empressement. 
"  Where  was  it?  "  my  hearers  said.  And  after 
Borne  time  it  came  out  clear  that  this  was  the 
Munson's  Hill  Battery,  and  those  were  "  the 
quaker" — that  is,  the  wooden  —  guns,  bless 
the  mark! 

I  went  home  to  Chicago  early  in  October, 
opened  the  church  for  one  Sunday,  perhaps,  but 
had  been  asked  to  go  to  St.  Louis  and  thence 
through  Missouri,  and  report  from  there.  The 
Western  Sanitary  Commission  was  well  under 
way  by  that  time,  and  also  did  a  noble  work  un- 
til the  war  was  over.  I  went  to  Jefferson  City, 


SOME  MEMORIES 


to  see  after  the  hospital  there,  where  I  found 
things  in  good  condition,  and  then  went  on  to 
the  end  of  the  route.  Fremont's  troops  had 
gone  over,  picking  up  sick  men  to  take  back  to 
St.  Louis.  This  was  a  hard  task:  the  troops 
seemed  to  have  eaten  the  land  clean  to  the  bone. 
I  was  never  so  hungry,  so  far  as  I  remember, 
before  or  since.  All  we  had  to  eat  going  down 
was  hard  tack.  The  men  who  were  helping  me 
with  the  sick  —  good  fellows,  but  so  hungry  — 
said,  when  the  train  halted  for  a  few  minutes, 
"  Yonder  is  a  tavern :  we  will  go  and  forage  for 
victuals." 

They  went,  and  presently  came  on  the  dead 
run,  holding  something  by  a  string,  with  a  man 
running  after  them,  shouting  bad  words.  He 
was  the  tavern-keeper,  a  German;  and  it  was  a 
piece  of  pork  they  had  on  the  string.  The 
train  had  begun  to  move  slowly.  They  had 
just  time  to  board  the  train,  so  had  the  tavern- 
keeper;  and  this  is  how  I  came  to  know  he  was 
saying  bad  words  when  I  could  not  hear  them. 
The  soldiers  told  me  they  wanted  to  buy  the 
pork,  which  was  roasting  before  the  fire,  and 
he  would  not  sell  it  at  any  price.  So  one  of 
them  cut  the  string,  and  they  ran  off  with  it. 
He  calmed  down  after  another  polyglot  of 
[  123  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


blasphemy,  and  sat  up  to  help  them  eat  his 
pork ;  and,  when  they  had  dined  on  that  and  the 
hard  tack,  I  said  to  one  of  them,  "  Now  let's 
pay  him  for  the  pork."  So  we  paid  him,  and  he 
got  off  at  the  first  station  to  take  a  train  home. 
No,  I  did  not  eat  any  of  that  pork. 

Toward  sundown  a  bad  headache  came  on ; 
and,  when  we  came  to  a  long  wait  at  the  Cali- 
fornia station,  I  must  needs  find  some  good  soul 
who  would  make  me  a  cup  of  tea.  A  man  on  the 
platform  pointed  to  a  house  where  he  thought 
I  could  have  one,  and,  asking  there,  the  woman 
said,  "  I  will  give  you  your  supper  for  a  quar- 
ter." I  told  her  this  was  what  I  wanted,  so  she 
got  me  my  supper.  It  was  not  good,  but  the 
best  she  had. 

I  found,  chatting  with  her,  that  she  was  a 
member  of  the  small  white  church  near  by.  So 
for  the  humor  of  it  I  said,  "  I  suppose  you  en- 
tertain the  ministers  now  and  then  when  they 
come  round?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  entertain  'em  all  and 
never  take  a  cent.  I  would  scorn  to  charge  a 
minister."  Whereat  I  said  with  a  most  win- 
some smile,  "  I  am  a  minister,  ma'am." 

She  looked  me  over  sharply.     The  grime  of 


SOME  MEMORIES 


a  week  was  on  me:  I  was  unshaven  also,  and 
looked  much  more  like  a  tramp.  So  she  said 
promptly,  "  You  are  no  minister." 

I  drew  a  lot  of  letters  from  my  pocket,  laid 
them  in  her  hand,  and  said,  "  Read  the  address, 
please,  on  those  letters." 

She  read  them.  "  Yes,  I  suppose  you  be  a 
minister;  but  be  you  for  the  North  or  the 
South?  " 

"  For  the  North,"  I  answered,  "  every  time." 

"  Then,"  she  answered,  "  you  got  to  pay  for 
your  supper.  I  am  for  the  South  every  time. 
I  don't  feed  Yanks  for  noth'n' ;  and,  if  my  hus- 
band out  there  wa'n't  a  coward,  he  would  be 
fighting  for  the  South  this  day."  So  I  paid  for 
my  supper,  and  my  head  was  better. 

I  reported  in  St.  Louis  to  my  dear  old  friend 
Dr.  Eliot,  who  was  giving  his  life  for  the  great 
cause;  and  then  went  home  to  my  church  to 
leave  them  again  for  Fort  Donelson.  I  shall  tell 
the  story  soon  of  what  we  tried  to  do  there. 
Early  in  April,  when  the  news  came  from 
Pittsburg  Landing  of  the  stern  battles,  we  met 
swiftly  again,  ready  to  lend  a  hand.  A  larger 
number  volunteered  to  go,  and  we  lost  no 
time  speeding  down  to  Cairo  and  then  up  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


river.  They  had  elected  me  to  be  captain  of 
the  company,  because,  as  they  said,  I  knew  the 
ropes. 

Brother  Moody,  with  some  ministers  in  the 
"  Christian  Commission,"  was  in  the  company ; 
and,  as  we  went  up  the  river,  he  said  to  me: 
"  Brother  Collyer,  we  are  going  to  hold  a 
prayer-meeting  in  the  saloon.  Will  you  come 
in  and  join  us?  "  "  Gladly,"  I  answered,  and 
went.  Early  in  the  meeting  he  made  an  ad- 
dress to  us,  of  which  the  burden  was  that  we 
were  going  to  the  battlefield  to  save  souls 
or  those  men  would  die  in  their  sins.  He 
did  not  say  they  would  go  to  hell,  but  this  was 
the  clear  inference  if  we  did  not  save  them. 

When  he  sat  down,  I  rose  to  my  feet  and  said, 
"  Brother  Moody  is  mistaken :  we  are  not  going 
there  to  save  the  souls  of  our  soldiers,  but  to 
save  their  lives  and  leave  their  souls  in  the 
hands  of  God."  Our  work  would  be  this  we 
had  done  at  Fort  Donelson ;  and  I  outlined  the 
work, —  to  comfort  them  with  tender  words,  lay 
on  the  soft  linen,  and  cool  water,  wash  them, 
and  see  by.  all  means  to  their  help  and  healing. 
The  great  first  thing  was  the  nursing  back  to 
life,  and  this  we  must  do. 

There  was  a  dead  silence  when  I  sat  down, 
[  126  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  then  a  brother  minister  from  Chicago  rose 
and  said :  "  This  is  the  way  the  Unitarians  al- 
ways go  to  work,  from  the  surface  inward ;  but 
we  go  directly  to  the  heart  first,  and  then  work 
out  to  the  surface,  ending  where  they  begin. 
We  must  do  the  one  thing  and  not  leave  the 
other  undone, —  warn  the  sinner,  pray  with 
him,  and  point  him  to  the  thief  on  the  cross." 

I  rose  on  the  instant  when  he  sat  down,  and 
said :  "  My  friends,  we  know  what  those  men 
have  done,  no  matter  who  or  what  they  are. 
They  left  their  homes  for  the  camp  and  the 
battle,  while  we  stayed  behind  in  our  city.  They 
endured  hardness  like  good  soldiers,  while  we 
were  lodged  softly.  They  have  fought  and  fal- 
len for  the  flag  of  the  Union  and  all  the  flag 
stands  for,  while  here  we  are  safe  and  sound.  I 
will  not  doubt  for  a  moment  the  sincerity  of  my 
friend  and  yours  who  has  just  spoken;  but  I 
will  say  for  myself  that  I  should  be  ashamed  all 
my  life  long  if  I  should  point  to  the  thief  on  the 
cross  in  speaking  to  these  men,  or  to  any  other 
thief  the  world  has  ever  heard  of."  And,  when 
I  sat  down,  there  was  a  roar  of  applause. 

And  now  another  memory  links  in  with  this. 
About  a  year  before  Brother  Moody  was  taken 
to  his  well-won  rest  and  reward,  I  was  standing 
[  127  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


one  morning  on  a  platform  of  the  elevated, 
waiting  for  a  train,  when  a  hand  was  laid  on  my 
shoulder  from  behind,  and,  turning,  there  was 
Brother  Moody !  I  had  not  met  him  since  that 
day  on  the  way  to  Pittsburg  Landing.  There 
was  a  smile  now  on  his  honest  face,  I  was  glad  to 
notice ;  and,  with  no  word  of  preface,  he  said, 
"  You  were  all  wrong  that  day  in  the  saloon." 
And  I  answered,  "  Old  friend,  if  I  was  ever  all 
right  in  my  life,  it  was  in  that  afternoon  on  the 
steamer;  and,  if  we  must  all  answer  for  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body,  my  answer  will  be  ready, 
and  don't  you  forget  it!  "  We  parted  then, 
and  I  saw  him  to  speak  to  him  no  more. 


[  128  ] 


XVII 

Our  work  at  the  hospitals  was  about  the  same 
as  that  we  had  done  before,  but  more  plentiful 
because  there  was  much  more  to  do.  But  one 
memory  wakes  up  as  I  write,  of  one  job  I  must 
tackle,  painful  then,  but  pleasant  now, —  of  a 
man  lying  on  a  cot  in  a  condition  I  cannot  de- 
scribe. He  looked  toward  me  with  woe-stricken 
eyes.  It  was  a  bad  case  of  camp  fever,  with  all 
this  means.  There  was  so  much  to  do  for  the 
wounded  that  the  poor  fellow  had  been  left  quite 
helpless  in  his  misery.  I  saw  at  once  what  must 
be  done.  I  went  for  towels,  soap,  and  warm 
water,  a  clean  mattress,  bed  linen,  and  a  night- 
robe,  also  something  for  him  to  take, — my  good 
milk  and  things.  He  brightened  up  when  he 
had  taken  the  milk,  and  was  washed  as  a  mother 
washes  her  baby,  as  he  lay  on  the  floor.  The 
foul  things  were  taken  away,  a  brand-new  bed 
was  made,  his  night-robe  put  on,  and,  if  I  had 
been  so  minded,  he  was  clean  enough  now  to 
kiss,  the  poor  forlorn  soldier !  and,  when  we  left 
[  129  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  hospital,  he  was  getting  well.  I  left  him 
there,  and  went  with  a  steamer  loaded  with  the 
wounded  down  to  Mound  City,  and  then  went 
home. 

When  Lawrence  was  wrecked  by  Quantrell 
and  his  guerillas  with  murder  and  burnings,  the 
good  heart  of  our  city  was  moved  to  help  her. 
A  large  sum  of  money  was  raised,  and,  being 
now,  as  I  suppose,  very  much  a  minister  at  large, 
I  was  sent  out  with  the  money  to  relieve  those 
who  had  survived  the  massacre  and  were  in  need 
of  help.  Jeremiah  Brown  — "  Jerry,"  for 
short  —  went  out  with  me.  He  was  the  brother 
of  old  John,  knew  Kansas  like  a  book,  and  was 
useful  to  me  as  my  right  Land  until  the  work 
was  over  and  I  came  home  to  make  a  report  in 
the  Chicago  Tribune  of  what  we  had  seen  and 
done. 

Sixteen  men  who  had  gone  from  the  homes  in 
our  city  were  sent  home  for  burial,  and  arrange- 
ments were  made  for  the  services  on  the  next 
Sunday  in  our  largest  hall.  The  caskets  were 
laid  side  by  side  on  the  platform,  draped  or 
covered  with  the  flags.  They  asked  me  to  take 
the  sermon ;  but  there  was  no  text  that  day  and 
no  sermon  of  the  old  pattern,  only  the  story  in 
simple  sentences  of  what  we  had  seen  and  what 
[  130  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


they  had  done.  You  felt  the  great  heart  beat- 
ing the  grand  Amen,  and  in  the  psalms  and 
songs.  It  is  told  in  our  Bible  of  one  man  that 
they  buried  him  among  the  kings  because  he 
had  done  well  in  Israel.  I  think  we  gave  our 
boys  the  nobler  funeral  that  day.  I  can  never 
forget  that  Sunday. 

Many  prisoners  were  sent  to  our  city  to  be 
held  in  Camp  Douglas,  and  a  committee  was 
elected  to  see  that  they  were  well  cared  for.  I 
served  on  the  committee,  and  live  to  vouch  for 
the  care  taken  for  the  prisoners.  My  heart  was 
drawn  to  them  in  something  more  than  pity, 
they  were  so  forlorn;  and,  when  I  would  talk 
with  them,  I  found  them  so  simple  of  heart  and 
true  to  their  own  side  still.  They  would  say  to 
me :  "  We  were  raised  in  the  South,  so  were  our 
folks ;  and  we  belong  there  now  just  as  you  be- 
long in  the  North,  and  we  fought  for  our  rights. 
There  was  no  other  way,  and  we'll  fight  again  if 
we  get  the  chance.  Can  you  blame  us  ?  "  And 
I  did  not  blame  them,  but  did  not  tell.  The 
government  gave  many  of  them  the  option  to 
join  our  navy  and  be  set  free.  Very  few  of 
them,  so  far  as  I  remember,  took  the  option; 
and,  when  I  said  to  one  of  them,  "  Why  do 
you  not  join  our  navy  and  be  free?  "  he  an- 
[  131  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


swered  in  wonder:  "  How  can  I  do  that?  I 
could  never  go  home  again  and  look  my  folks  in 
the  face." 

Many  of  them  were  country  born  and  raised, 
and  those  who  could  not  write  would  ask  us  if 
we  would  write  a  letter  home  and  tell  the  folks 
they  were  alive  and  well,  prisoners  at  Chicago ; 
or  one  would  blush  and  stammer  trying  to  tell 
us  what  to  write.  It  would  be  a  maiden  in  that 
case;  perhaps  he  would  not  be  able  to  say  the 
words  he  held  in  his  heart,  and  we  would  help 
him  out.  Some  of  us  grew  quite  clever  in  this 
sort  of  letter,  and  return  to  the  days  of  our 
youth;  and  how  glad  we  were  as  we  would  lend 
a  hand ! 

The  memory  touches  me  now  of  going  one 
morning  through  the  hospital  in  the  camp  where 
a  boy  —  he  was  no  more  —  beckoned  to  me,  and 
I  went  and  sat  down  by  his  cot.  He  was  very 
weak,  and  whispered  to  me,  "  Be  you  a  minister, 
sir?"  "Yes,"  I  answered.  "  A  Methodist?  " 
"No."  "A  Baptist?"  "No."  This  seemed 
to  be  the  extent  of  his  knowledge ;  for  he  said, 
"  What  be  you,  then,  sir?  "  And,  when  I  an- 
swered, "  I  am  a  Unitarian,"  he  looked  at  me 
with  a  touch  of  wonder  and  said :  "  I  never 
heard  of  them.  What  do  you  believe,  sir?  I 
[  132  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


am  dying,  and  would  like  you  to  help  me  if  you 
can."  Then,  in  the  simplest  terms  I  could 
find  in  my  heart,  I  told  him  of  our  faith  in  God 
our  Father  and  of  his  Christ  who  came  to  tell 
us  of  his  Father's  love  for  all  his  children,  not 
here  and  now  alone,  but  forever  here  and  here- 
after. He  drew  a  long  breath  with  a  sob  in  its 
heart  when  I  had  done,  and  said :  "  That  is  good, 
and  I  thank  you,  sir.  Will  you  come  to  see  me 
again,  when  you  are  in  the  camp?  "  I  said 
"  yes" ;  but,  when  I  could  go  again,  he  was  not 
there:  he  had  gone  to  the  Father  with  the  mes- 
sage in  his  heart,  a  prisoner  of  hope. 

So  I  sit  here,  and  the  memories  awake  of  the 
great  old  time.  Donelson  comes  out  of  the  mys- 
tery of  remembrance,  and  the  day  when  I  had 
a  little  spell  of  rest  and  stood  alone  by  a  bit  of 
woodland  in  the  early  spring  morning,  and 
listened  to  the  birds  singing  as  sweetly  and  flit- 
ting about  as  merrily  as  if  the  tempest  of  fire 
and  smoke  but  a  week  before  was  clean  forgot- 
ten, when  they  were  driven  in  mortal  haste  away, 
while  at  my  feet  a  little  bunch  of  sweet  berga- 
mot  was  putting  forth  the  brown-blue  leaves  and 
a  bed  of  daffodils  was  unfolding  to  the  early 
spring  sun.  Our  Mother  Nature  had  sent  down 
great  rains  to  wash  away  the  crimson  stains,  and 
[  133  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


for  the  moment  there  was  peace.  The  general, 
whose  name  was  now  on  all  men's  lips,  rode 
past  me  in  the  near  distance,  smoking  the  in- 
evitable cigar, —  the  first  time  I  had  seen  him. 
The  mounds  were  not  far  away  where  our  dead 
were  laid  side  by  side,  with  here  and  there  a 
bit  of  board  rudely  fashioned  with  an  inscrip- 
tion rudely  written  with  a  black  lead-pencil  by 
some  comrade,  to  make  good  for  a  few  days,  if 
no  more,  the  promise  given  to  his  friend,  per- 
haps as  they  sat  by  the  campfires  a  few  days 
before  the  battle.  The  dead  are  buried,  a 
soldier  tells  me,  every  man  by  his  own  company, 
and  the  prisoners  are  detailed  to  bury  their  own 
dead;  but  our  men  will  not  let  them  dig  the 
grave  or  touch  the  body  of  one  of  their  own 
comrades.  These  are  held  sacred  even  for  the 
grave. 

In  the  far-away  time  and  in  the  motherland 
the  Puritan  and  Cavalier  came  to  the  death- 
grip  with  each  other;  but  now  they  sit  by  the 
same  fireside,  each  proud  of  the  other's  valor  in 
the  mighty  struggle.  So  in  our  great  war 
Marston  Moor  clasps  hands  with  Gettysburg 
in  the  fifteen  decisive  battles  of  the  world;  and 
now  -we  are  learning  —  nay,  we  have  learned  — 
to  forget  and  forgive,  to  blend  again  in  one 
[  134  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


family,  because  blood  is  thicker  than  water, — 
closer  of  kin  now  and  more  gentle  and  brotherly 
than  we  ever  were  when  the  awful  curse  of  hu- 
man slavery  lay  over  all  the  land. 


XVIII 

This  memory  touches  the  battle  of  Fort  Don- 
elson,  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  the  fort 
and  sent  the  first  clear  shaft  of  light  through 
the  shadows  which  had  lain  like  a  pall  over  the 
loyal  North  since  the  conflicts  at  Bull  Run  and 
Manassas  Junction  in  the  previous  summer, 
when  we  were  so  confident  of  an  easy  victory 
that  the  story  was  told  of  a  chaplain  in  one  of 
our  regiments,  who  had  prepared  a  sermon  from 
the  text,  "  Manassas  is  mine."  He  did  not 
preach  that  sermon. 

The  capture  of  this  important  stronghold  set 
the  Northwest  afire,  and  inspired  our  people 
afresh  to  make  every  sacrifice  the  great  crisis 
might  demand.  This  indeed  was  their  purpose 
from  the  first;  but  here  was  a  new  springing 
forth  of  hope,  while  I  well  remember,  when  the 
first  telegrams  were  flashed  to  our  city,  the  news 
seemed  almost  too  good  to  be  true.  But  these 
were  confirmed  beyond  all  question  presently, 
and  then  our  city  was  almost  insane  for  a  time 
in  her  joy  over  the  victory,  as  the  reports  took 
[  136  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


on  a  stormful  splendor,  while  still  we  knew  how 
weighted  with  woe  the  glad  tidings  must  be  for 
some  of  our  neighbors  and  friends. 

We  had  broken  the  great  bell  in  the  cupola 
of  the  court-house  some  time  before,  when  the 
news  came  that  Richmond  had  fallen,  and  the 
broken  bell  was  all  we  had  for  our  pains  — and 
pleasure;  for  Richmond  held  her  own  through 
many  a  weary  month  from  that  day.  But  now 
all  the  bells  in  the  town  swung  free,  sound  or 
broken  we  did  not  care,  and  went  clanging  over 
the  prairies  and  the  lake.  The  flags  were  shaken 
out  to  the  wind  from  every  window,  and  my 
grand  old  friend,  the  judge  across  our  street, 
sent  his  flag  flying  among  the  first.  He  had 
three  sons  in  the  battle,  and  one  of  them  was 
slain. 

We  had  a  good  many  citizens  who  were  from 
the  South,  and  their  sympathies  were  there. 
They  durst  not  unfurl  their  banners  and  would 
not  unfurl  ours.  But  men  went  quietly  to  see 
them  in  their  homes,  and  said  to  them,  "  We 
leave  it  at  your  option  for  so  many  hours  [or 
minutes  as  the  humor  took  them]  whether  you 
will  procure  the  flag  of  the  Union  and  hoist  it 
over  your  place  or  have  no  place  for  the  hoist- 
ing." Men  rushed  everywhere  through  the 
[  137  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


streets,  saying  to  each  other,  "  Have  you  heard 
the  news  from  Donelson  ?  "  Then  they  would 
grasp  each  other's  hand,  though  they  had  never 
met  before,  and  break  into  a  laughter  which 
ended  not  seldom  in  tears,  as  I  can  bear  wit- 
ness. 

In  the  spring  before  this  there  had  been  such 
a  throb  of  the  heart  through  our  city  when  the 
ark  of  our  covenant  was  struck  by  the  shot  at 
Fort  Sumter;  and  they  knew,  as  all  the  North 
knew,  this  meant  war  with  the  manhood  of  our 
own  blood  and  nurture.  And  then  it  was  clear 
to  the  wise  and  able  men  in  our  city  that  the 
Southern  point  of  the  State  where  the  great 
arterial  rivers  meet  and  run  thence  to  the  sea 
must  be  held  at  all  odds.  So  the  young  men 
who  stood  ready  volunteered  at  once  for  this 
service,  and  went  down  to  Cairo.  A  number  of 
fine  young  fellows  from  our  own  church  were 
among  them ;  and  one  of  them  told  me  how  they 
intercepted  a  telegram  from  the  Governor  of 
Louisiana,  who  wanted  to  know  about  a  vessel 
from  Galena  loaded  with  lead  which  was  over- 
due, and  they  answered,  "  She  is  anchored  off 
the  point,  and  we  will  send  down  the  cargo  in 
•mall  lots  when  we  get  a  good  ready." 

Regiments  and  batteries  were  organized 
[  138  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


swiftly  in  answer  to  the  first  call  from  Wash- 
ington, and  the  men  were  not  drawn  from  the 
ruck  and  refuse  of  our  city.  They  were  from 
the  very  flower  of  our  youth  in  that  year, 
and  the  best, —  young  men  from  the  stores,  the 
offices,  and  the  workshops.  I  speak  of  that  I 
know  and  testify  of  that  which  I  have  seen. 
They  were  of  the  manhood  which  nourishes  a  fine 
ambition  to  rise,  and  were  drawing  good  pay  for 
those  times.  They  leaped  from  their  stools, 
closed  their  books,  laid  down  the  hammer,  and 
enlisted  in  the  ranks  in  hundreds  for  the  rank 
and  pay  of  the  common  soldier.  I  do  not  like 
that  word  "  common  "  for  those  men. 

And  presently  they  came  with  a  rush  from 
Iowa  and  the  Far  West  of  that  time.  I  can  see 
them  now  in  gray  frocks  and  belted,  made  in 
their  own  towns  and  homes, —  handsome,  sound, 
and  whole  men.  And,  when  they  passed  through 
our  city,  we  fed  them  royally  on  their  way  to 
the  front ;  for  they  were  of  our  Western  clans, 
and  we  were  proud  of  them.  They  were  our 
boys  also. 

So  you  may  be  sure,  when  the  news  came  from 

the  Southwest  of  the  battle  and  victory  at  Don- 

elson,    Chicago   could  not  be   content  just  to 

ring  her  bells  and  shake  out  her  banners  again, 

[  139] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


or  run  through  her  streets  with  the  tears  break- 
ing through  her  laughter. 

We  knew  there  must  be  great  numbers  there 
on  the  Cumberland  —  friends  —  yes,  and  foes, 
—  and  we  could  be  as  a  very  present  help  in  the 
time  of  need  if  we  could  get  there  with  such  sup- 
plies of  first  help  for  the  wounded  as  we  could 
muster. 

A  meeting  of  our  citizens  was  instantly 
called;  and,  as  the  memory  steals  out  from  the 
shadow  of  forty-two  years,  that  meeting  was 
one  of  the  wonders.  I  think  that,  if  some  great 
gift  had  been  waiting  for  each  man  who  would 
come  and  ask  for  it,  there  could  not  have  been 
a  more  eager  company  than  that  which  came  to 
the  hall.  Ask  them  a  week  before  to  leave  the 
church,  the  bar,  the  sick,  or  the  market,  for  al- 
most any  other  reason,  and  they  would  not  have 
heard  you ;  but  they  needed  no  asking  now.  The 
client  might  swear,  the  church  suspend  her 
services,  the  business  wait,  and  the  patient  find 
another  physician:  they  would  go  to  Donelson 
and  look  after  the  boys. 

And  as  the  men  came,  so  supplies  came  for 
what  I  may  call  first  aid  for  the  wounded,  so 
that  we  were  able  to  get  on  board  with  no  loss  of 
time,  take  the  train  for  Cairo,  and  from  thence 


SOME  MEMORIES 


take  a  steamer  up  the  river  to  the  battlefield, 
and  say,  "  Here  we  are :  what  can  we  do  ?  " 

But  in  Cairo,  that  mud  hole  in  those  days, 
we  had  to  wait  some  hours  for  our  steamer ;  and 
there  I  came  on  the  first  traces  of  the  great  con- 
flict. Four  of  those  long  boxes  we  came  to 
know  so  well  were  shells,  nailed  together  in  haste, 
holding  the  bodies  of  four  officers  sent  home  for 
the  burial.  There  was  a  card  on  each,  bearing 
the  name  of  the  man.  They  were  laid  on  a  low 
bank  out  of  the  mud;  and,  as  I  stood  there,  a 
man  came  to  meet  the  body  of  his  brother. 
There  was  some  doubt  touching  his  identity,  so 
the  shell  was  opened.  I  glanced  at  the  fine 
strong  face  of  the  brother  and  then  at  that  in 
the  shell.  There  could  be  no  doubt  then  that 
they  were  sons  of  the  same  mother.  He  must 
have  died,  I  thought,  instantly.  There  was  not 
a  line  on  the  face  to  tell  you  of  a  protracted 
agony.  It  was  the  look  rather  of  one  who  had 
fallen  on  sleep. 

Presently  I  walked  away  into  the  mist,  and  I 
came  on  one  of  those  bits  of  grim  humor  in 
which  smiles  blend  with  tears  in  this  human  life. 
A  young  soldier  was  sitting  on  the  bank,  with 
his  feet  in  the  mud,  looking  as  if  he  did  not 
quite  know  how  to  steer.  He  was  wounded  in 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  head,  and  had  twisted  a  sort  of  turban  over 
the  wound,  which  was  saturated  with  his  blood. 
I  said,  "  You  are  from  Donelson?  "  And  he 
answered,  with  no  tone  of  dolor :  "  Yes :  I  was  in 
the  battle,  where  I  got  a  bad  clout  on  my  head, 
So  they  sent  me  down  the  river,  and  I  am  going 
home  to  Indiana,  where  I  will  get  well,  and 
then  come  back  and  report." 

So  I  said :  "  We  are  going  up  to  help  nurse 
the  wounded,  but  I  should  like  to  begin  here. 
Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you  ? "  He 
looked  up  shyly,  saying :  "  Can  you  give  me  a 
bit  of  tobacco?  I  am  out,  and  want  some  real 
bad,  but  have  only  just  enough  money  for 
[I  think  he  said  grub]  until  I  get  home."  I 
had  no  tobacco,  but  gave  him  some  money  and 
some  over  to  help  him  home.  He  took  it  quietly, 
and  said :  "  You  are  real  good,  sir.  Would  you 
like  to  see  my  head?  "  I  shrank  back,  but  he 
was  already  unwinding  the  turban.  So  he  had 
his  way.  It  was  a  very  bad  bulge  well  up  in 
the  forehead ;  and,  when  I  said  in  wonder,  "  The 
bullet  did  not  go  in  then  ?  "  he  answered  quite 
cheerily :  "  No,  sir :  my  head  was  too  thick  for 
the  bullets  of  them  rebs.  It  flatted  and  fell  off. 
I  got  it  here  in  my  pocket.  Like  to  see  it?  " 
He  pulled  the  thing  out  and  laid  it  in  my  hand, 
[  142  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


aaying,  with  a  touch  of  pride,  "  That  ain't  no 
use  ajgin  a  head  like  mine."  I  must  have  given 
him  my  name  and  address;  for  one  Sunday, 
some  time  after  the  war  was  over,  a  young  man 
waited  for  me  at  the  foot  of  the  pulpit  stairs, 
held  out  his  hand  with  a  smile,  and  said,  "  You 
don't  know  me,  sir."  This  was  true ;  but,  when 
he  lifted  up  a  tuft  of  hair  from  his  forehead 
and  said,  "  See  that?  "  I  knew  my  man.  He 
also  laid  the  flatted  bullet  again  in  my  hand, 
saying :  "  I  am  all  right  now,  sir.  I  went  back 
to  my  regiment,  and  kept  my  thick  head  safe 
and  sound  through  the  war,  and  took  a  notion 
to  come  up  to  Chicago  and  see  you.  I  had  to, 
for  I  will  never  forget  how  you  acted  about  that 
tobacco." 

When  we  came  ashore,  we  went  to  find  the 
men  who  had  gone  from  our  city.  I  went  to 
find  those  from  our  church  and  their  comrades. 
They  gave  us  coffee ;  and,  as  we  sat  there,  others 
came  clustering  about  us,  and  after  a  while 
would  fain  have  us  tell  them  all  about  the  home 
city.  We  told  them  how  the  city,  when  we  left 
on  the  train,  was  afire  with  the  news  from  the 
battlefield  and  the  capture  of  the  fort,  and  our 
words  could  be  no  more  than  an  echo  of  those 
we  heard  everywhere,  and  then  told  them  of  our 


SOME  MEMORIES 


errand.  We  had  come  out  at  once  not  to  look  on, 
but  to  do  whatever  lay  in  our  power  to  help  all 
round.  I  went  over  the  battlefield  with  Gen. 
Webster,  who  had  command  of  the  artillery 
through  the  three  days.  Something  had  been 
done  already  to  clear  away  the  wreck,  and  first 
of  all  the  dead.  But  the  woods  and  the  open 
were  still  strewn  with  the  dead  horses  and  har- 
ness, shot  and  shell,  while  in  one  reach  I 
counted  three  men  who  had  not  been  buried,  and 
in  another,  on  the  edge  of  the  woods,  there  were 
eleven.  And  in  a  lone  place  aside,  out  of  the  way 
of  the  brush  and  the  carnage,  as  if  he  had  crept 
there  —  the  poor  fellow !  —  to  die,  was  a  soldier 
of  the  rebel  army,  with  his  blanket  about  him, 
a  poor  bit  of  a  shawl  his  wife  had  given  him,  it 
may  be,  or  his  mother.  He  was  poorly  and 
thinly  clad  I  could  notice,  but  he  could  not  feel 
the  cold. 

"  His  hands  were  folded  on  his  breast ; 

There  was  no  other  thing  exprest 
But  long  disquiet  merged  in  rest." 

He  had  done  with  it  all,  while  in  some 
home  they  were  wondering  if  they  should  ever 
see  his  face  again. 

[  144  ] 


XIX 

This  has  been  a  word,  and  no  more,  about  the 
battlefield.  And  now  I  must  tell  you  of  the 
work  we  went  out  to  do.  The  small  town  of 
Dover  was  full  of  the  sick  and  wounded  men, 
huddled  together  anywhere  until  they  could  be 
removed.  Surgeons,  helpers,  home-made  nurses, 
we  do  what  we  can  to  help  them  where  they  lie, 
pour  out  our  stores  for  them  freely  as  water 
runs  down  hill ;  for  the  Sanitary  Commission  are 
burning  the  wires  below  in  their  eager  haste  to 
send  up  other  stores  almost  as  soon  as  we  get 
there.  Everything  we  could  need  was  there. 
"  Sanitary  "  is  lord  of  the  day. 

When  we  had  done  what  we  could,  there  and 
then,  a  steamer  was  ready  to  take  one  hundred 
and  sixty  sick  and  wounded  down  the  river  to 
Mound  City  to  a  great  hospital,  and  we  went 
with  them.  They  are  laid  so  close  on  the  floor 
of  the  long  saloon  that  sometimes  it  is  hard  to 
set  your  foot  between  them.  Here  is  one  who 
has  lost  an  arm,  and  there  one  who  has  lost  a 
leg.  Here  is  a  gray-haired  man,  and  there  a 
[  145  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


boy  of  eighteen:  they  are  shot  through  the 
lungs. 

Here  is  a  noble-looking  soldier  with  a  fearful 
wound  over  the  eye,  and  there  a  yellow-haired 
German  with  blue  eyes  that  appeal  to  me  piti- 
fully as  I  come  and  go,  so  that  I  feel  I  must  at- 
tend to  him,  no  matter  who  else  waits.  He  has 
been  mauled  in  the  face,  I  find,  so  that  he  can 
take  no  nourishment  and  is  perishing  for  lack 
of  food.  "  What  can  I  do  for  you?  "  I  say, 
and  he  points  first  to  his  mouth,  or  rather  where 
his  mouth  was,  and  then  to  his  stomach.  I  am 
at  a  loss  for  some  moments  what  to  do,  while  the 
blue  eyes  watch  me,  eager  and  hungry ;  and  then 
in  a  flash  I  see  my  way.  I  had  rested  some 
while  in  a  state-room,  and,  as  I  was  turning  out, 
saw  a  pretty  silvered  funnel  on  a  shelf  above  my 
head.  So  I  bend  over  him  and  say,  "  I  am  go- 
ing to  get  something  into  you,  old  man,  or  I 
will  know  the  reason  why;  but  you  must  help 
me  for  all  you  are  worth."  His  tongue  could 
not  answer  me,  but  his  eyes  said :  "  All  right.  I 
will  do  what  you  tell  me." 

I  got  a  fine  pitcher  of  milk  from  the  stores, 

put  a  lot  of  sugar  in  it  and  something  else,  but 

will  not  tell  you  what  that  was.     I  had  noticed 

a  small  slit  in  one  corner  of  his  mouth.     "  Now," 

[  146  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  said,  "  this  small  funnel  will  go  in  there,  and 
this  milk  will  go  through  into  your  stomach." 
And  again  he  looked  the  amen  he  could  not  say. 
So  I  poured  slowly,  and  the  stream  found  no 
hindrance.  I  could  hear  the  gurgle,  and  his 
blue  eyes  shone.  I  gave  him  all  I  dared,  and 
then  said,  "  That  will  do  for  now."  But,  as  I 
passed  him  to  help  some  other  man,  he  would  ap- 
peal to  me  with  those  eyes  and  point  to  the  place 
where  milk  and  things  go.  So  we  would  have 
another  turn  of  the  pitcher.  The  woful  con- 
cave changed  slowly  to  the  convex;  and,  before 
we  left  the  steamer,  the  surgeon  said,  "  That  fel- 
low will  get  well."  And,  do  you  believe  it,  I 
think  that  by  Heaven's  blessing  on  the  milk  and 
things  I  saved  the  blue-eyed  boy's  life. 

The  surgeon  comes  to  a  young  man  close  by 
me,  as  I  attend  to  that  mouth,  and  says,  "  I  fear 
I  must  take  off  your  arm."  He  begs  to  have  him 
leave  it  on  a  while  longer,  no  matter  for  the  pain. 
So  the  good  surgeon  leaves  him,  and  he  moans 
to  me :  "  What  shall  I  do  if  I  lose  my  arm  ? 
There  is  only  myself  left  to  look  after  my  old 
mother  and  the  farm.  I  must  save  that  arm." 
And,  before  we  leave  the  steamer,  the  surgeon 
tells  me  the  arm  will  be  saved.  Here  is  a  man 
I  must  attend  to  who  has  lost  his  arm  and  is  sink- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ing  into  the  shadows.  And,  as  I  lay  cool  wet 
linen  on  the  stump,  he  tells  me,  in  broken  sen- 
tences, he  has  left  a  wife  and  two  young  chil- 
dren at  home  he  will  never  see  again,  and  gives 
me  a  glance  into  his  brave  soul  in  asking  me 
what  hope  there  may  be  for  him  when  he  passes 
through  the  gates.  He  has  always  tried  to  do 
right,  he  says,  and  to  be  a  man,  but  never  pro- 
fessed religion.  "  You  will  go  right  home  to 
God,  your  Father  and  mine,"  I  told  him,  "  never 
you  fear."  With  some  more  words  from  my 
heart  he  is  comforted,  and,  as  I  come  and  go,  I 
watch  the  face  grow  white.  He  is  very  quiet 
now.  I  ask  a  good,  sweet  Presbyterian  deacon, 
a  neighbor  of  ours  in  the  city,  to  watch  with 
him.  The  lovely,  sweet  soul  is  quite  of  my 
mind  about  the  future  for  such  a  man,  and,  when 
all  is  over,  he  comes  to  tell  me  how  he  had  put 
up  the  one  hand  gently  when  the  end  came, 
closed  his  own  eyes,  and  then  laid  the  hand  softly 
on  his  breast  and  was  no  more,  no  more,  and  yet 
forevermore  that  man. 

That  boy  on  the  bulkhead  is  shot  through  the 
lungs,  and  all  day  long,  and  through  the  night, 
he  is  in  sore  anguish ;  but  at  last  the  pain  ceases, 
and  he  beckons  to  one  of  my  comrades  and  says : 
"  I  shall  die  now ;  and  will  you  do  me  a  great 
[  148  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


kindness?  Write  to  my  father  when  I  am 
gone,"  naming  a  small  rural  nook  in  Indiana 
as  the  address,  "  and  tell  him  I  am  dead."  And 
I  said  it  was  all  right.  "  And  tell  him  I  owe 
such  a  man  four  dollars  and  a  half,  and  such  a 
man  owes  me  four  dollars;  and  will  he  make 
things  straight  for  me,  as  I  came  away  in  a 
hurry?  And  father  must  draw  my  pay  and 
keep  it  all."  Then  he  lay  silent  for  a  while,  but 
woke  up  again  and  said  to  me,  "  I  have  been 
dreaming  about  home,  and  had  a  drink  out  of 
the  old  well  in  our  door-yard:  it  did  taste  so 
good !  "  And  then,  while  we  looked  on  the  lad, 
his  eyes  grew  dim.  He  had  left  us  as  we  looked. 
He  also  went  up  in  his  chariot  of  fire.  Neither 
shall  he  thirst  any  more,  but  drink 

"  From  life's  fair  stream,  fast  by  the  throne  of 
God." 

This  was  what  we  found  to  do  day  and  night 
on  the  steamer.  One  would  be  a  surgeon's  as- 
sistant when  he  was  needed;  some  of  us  grew 
clever  at  that  work.  I  was  one,  the  surgeon  told 
me;  but  that  is  another  story.  Then  we  went 
about  with  cool  water  and  soft  lint  and  linen, 
nice  choices  of  food  and  sips  of  wine  by  the  doc- 
tor's leave;  but  they  liked  my  milk  and  things 
[  149  ]  " 


SOME  MEMORIES 


best.     And  they  would  tell  us  about  their  home 
and  folks  after  we  had  got  a  bit  intimate. 

This  man,  strong  and  bearded,  was  hurt  twice 
in  the  battle,  and  went  away  from  the  surgeon's 
hands,  as  he  said,  to  have  another  try  for  it. 
He  was  struck  the  third  time,  and  said,  "  I 
guess  this  is  the  finish."  And  it  was.  That  boy 
stood  in  the  fight,  I  was  told,  like  one  of  Napo- 
leon's old  guard.  I  found,  as  I  talked  with 
him,  he  was  an  old-fashioned,  iron-clad,  close 
communion  Baptist.  He  had  just  strength 
enough,  an  officer  told  me,  after  he  was  hurt 
to  crawl  into  the  bushes,  and  then  he  began  to 
pray  with  all  his  might,  not  for  himself  —  he 
was  all  right  —  but  for  the  God  of  battles  to 
give  the  victory  to  the  flag  of  the  Union.  "  And 
there's  a  man,"  one  said  to  me,  "  an  officer  as 
you  see.  His  company  was  badly  thinned  early 
in  the  first  day  of  the  fight.  Well,  he  took 
the  musket  and  ammunition  from  one  of  his 
men  who  lay  dead,  and  said :  '  Boys,  we  are 
short-handed.  I  guess  I  will  go  into  the  ranks 
a  spell.'  He  fought  all  day  with  his  company, 
but  now  he  will  fight  no  more." 

This  is  the  story  of  the  old  battlefield,  told 
in  the  fitful  fashion,  but  not  half  told.     I  am 
there  again,  as  I  look  through  the  long  vista 
[  150  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


of  the  years,  and  am  by  no  means  sure  that  I 
have  done. 

War  is  hell,  the  great  commander  said.  Yes, 
I  would  answer,  war  is  hell.  But  these  memories 
steal  out,  and  then  I  say,  Is  this  all?  And  I 
turn  to  the  seer's  vision  in  the  Holy  Book  and 
read :  "  There  was  war  in  heaven.  Michael  and 
his  angels  fought  the  dragon  and  his  angels, 
and  the  dragon  was  cast  out."  And  then  I  ask, 
What  do  these  things  mean? 


XX 

The  church,  I  was  glad  to  find,  suffered  no 
loss  by  the  minister's  absence  at  Donelson,  Pitts- 
burg  Landing,  and  Lawrence ;  for,  indeed,  after 
my  return  from  the  long  spell  in  Washington 
and  Missouri,  I  was  never  absent,  for  more  than 
two  Sundays,  while  the  people  were  as  eager 
to  send  me  on  those  errands  as  I  was  to  go. 

Also  on  the  first  Sunday  after  my  return  I 
never  thought  of  preaching  a  sermon,  but  told 
them  the  story  of  what  we  had  seen  and  done 
in  the  hospitals  and  on  the  steamers  in  words 
close  of  kin  to  the  memories  you  have  read,  I 
trust,  while  they  would  listen  with  blended  smiles 
and  tears.  There  would  be  a  lesson  also,  and 
this  would  usually  be  one  of  the  old  fighting 
psalms ;  for  these  were  in  great  favor  with  us 
in  those  times ;  a  psalm  and  then  a  prayer,  with 
psalms  and  songs  sung  very  much  as  they  were 
sung  on  that  memorable  first  Sunday,  but  in 
softer  tones,  as  when  we  sing  the  requiems  for 
the  dead,  and  deep  calleth  unto  deep  in  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


heart's  reverence  and  love.  The  immortal  num- 
bers of  one  of  the  chief  singers  in  our  Israel, — 

"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming 
of  the  Lord," — 

were  pulsing  before  their  birth-time  in  the  strong 
heart  of  the  nation.  Nor  could  the  church  be 
content  merely  to  spare  her  minister:  she  must 
also  be  up  and  doing.  The  women  organized 
at  once  to  work  for  the  Sanitary  Commission, 
the  needle  to  help  heal  the  hurts  of  the  sword, 
to  help  take  care  also  of  the  regiments  which 
poured  through  the  city,  as  well  as  the  sick  and 
wounded.  Money,  also  was  needed,  and  on  a 
Sunday  morning  after  the  service  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars  was  subscribed  in  less  than  so  many 
minutes  for  any  and  every  demand. 

Mr.  Emerson  was  in  the  church  that  morning, 
was  to  go  home  with  me  to  dinner;  and,  as  we 
went  away  from  the  church,  he  said,  with  a 
tremor  in  his  voice,  "  I  must  give  you  something 
also."  And  when  I  said,  "  I  think  we  shall 
have  enough,  sir,"  he  answered,  "  It  will  be  well 
to  have  more  than  enough,"  as  he  passed  some 
bank-notes  into  my  hand.  I  was  glad  to  notice 
also  that  our  congregations  grew  steadily  larger 
Sunday  by  Sunday,  until  they  quite  filled  the 
[  153  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


church.  The  newcomers  were  not  of  our  faith 
as  a  rule ;  but  they,  took  pews  and  sittings,  and 
were  in  full  sympathy  with  the  spirit  and  pur- 
pose of  the  church,  and  wanted  so  far  to  be 
counted  in,  while  at  the  end  of  the  first  year 
of  my  ministry  and  through  the  years  to  come, 
the  good  early  years,  the  foretelling  of  the  dear 
helpmeet  came  true, —  the  well  did  not  run  dry 
or  the  bucket  often  scrape  the  sand,  so  that 
I  almost  ceased  to  be  afraid  of  the  next  Sun- 
day by  Wednesday. 

Then  of  course  we  must  start  a  Sunday- 
school,  the  children's  church  and  nursery.  So 
this  was  done ;  but  I  was  troubled  over  the  small 
number  that  came  to  the  school,  and  told  the 
people  this  would  never  do:  we  must  have  all 
the  children  we  could  muster  in  the  parish  who 
were  old  enough  to  come. 

They  made  no  answer  to  my  cry;  but  one 
day  one  of  the  members  came  to  talk  with  me 
about  it,  and  said :  "  You  know  this  is  a  young 
church,  and  the  most  of  us  are  young  people. 
There  is  only  one  gray  head  in  the  whole  mem- 
bership of  the  church  to-day,  so  you  must  be 
patient.  We  send  all  we  have  to  our  name  who 
are  old  enough  to  come,  and,  as  those  who  are 
too  young  come  along,  we  •will  send  them  also ; 
[  154.  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


for  we  want  to  have,  and  shall  have,  a  real  good 
Sunday-school,  only  give  us  time."  And  in 
the  fulness  of  time  there  was  no  room  for  com- 
plaint: they  made  good  his  promise. 

Our  Sunday-school  from  first  to  last  was  an 
open  trust.  We  made  all  the  children  welcome 
who  came  in,  and  drew  no  line  between  our  own 
and  the  children  of  the  stranger  within  our 
gates.  The  North  Side  was  then,  and  may  be 
still,  the  German  quarter;  and  in  the  course  of 
time,  when  there  was  ample  room  in  the  new 
church  we  shall  hear  about  anon,  children  from 
the  German  homes  came,  not  ragged  or  forlorn. 
German  mothers  do  not  know  how  to  let  their 
children  go  ragged!  They  were  all  whole  and 
wholesome.  My  other  "  right  hand  "  took  hold 
and  gathered  a  large  class  of  the  youngest, 
as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wing, 
mothering  them.  And  here  I  touch  a  lovely 
memory.  I  had  noticed  a  new  boy  in  the  circle 
about  her  with  a  great  rough  head  and  an  un- 
couth backward  look  in  his  eyes;  and,  after 
we  came  home  one  Sunday,  I  said,  "  Mother, 
what  do  you  make  of  that  new  boy  with  the 
great  head? "  "  Not  much  yet  awhile,"  she 
answered  cheerily.  "  About  all  I  can  do  for 
him  so  far  is  to  wipe  his  nose.  But  there  is 
[  155  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


something  in  that  boy :  he  will  be  worth  his  salt." 
And  he  was.  Some  years  ago  I  was  in  Chicago, 
and  of  course  must  take  the  services  and  sermon 
in  the  dear  church  of  my  first  love.  After 
the  sermon  the  host  of  old  friends  waited  to  greet 
me;  and  among  the  first  to  push  to  the  front, 
was  a  young  man  of  a  clear,  fine  presence  and 
well  clad,  who  held  out  his  hand  with  an  eager 
motion  and  said,  "  You  will  not  know  me,  sir ; 
but  I  was  in  Mrs.  Collyer's  class  in  the  Sunday- 
school,  and  I  can  never  forget  how  good  she 
was  to  me."  There  was  what  we  call  an  ear- 
mark on  the  boy,  and  there  it  was  on  the  young 
man.  So  I  told  him  how  glad  I  was  that  he 
should  tell  me  this  and  thank  me  in  her  name 
who  was  no  more  with  us.  He  was  in  business 
and  prosperous,  with  a  home  of  his  own  now 
and  a  small  family.  The  means  of  grace  for 
the  small  German  boy  began  away  down  there 
at  the  base  line. 

And  here  I  must  dwell  on  another  memory 
touching  the  children.  When  the  church  was 
well  established,  her  heart  was  moved  to  take 
another  step  in  his  name  who  took  the  little 
children  in  his  arms  and  blessed  them.  There 
were  some  back  streets  on  our  side  of  the  river 
in  a  poor  neighborhood  where  the  children  were 
[  156  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sadly  neglected,  and  the  good  women  said,  "  We 
must  see  what  can  be  done  to  help  them."  So 
they  rented  a  large  room  and  started  a  day 
home  in  about  the  centre  of  the  quarter,  to 
which  the  children  could  come  and  be  cared  for 
through  the  day  and  return  to  their  homes 
in  the  evening.  They  were  to  be  taught  and 
fed,  bathed,  and  their  poor  clothing  made  decent 
or  replaced.  It  was  not  what  we  call  welcome 
work.  I  remember  a  Saturday  afternoon  when 
I  met  one  of  the  faithful  workers,  a  perfect 
lady  in  one  of  our  best  families.  She  looked 
tired;  and,  when  I  said,  "Are  you  not  well?" 
she  answered  with  a  smile,  "  I  am  well,  but 
tired:  I  have  just  bathed  sixteen  of  our  children 
in  the  day  home." 

The  doors  opened  easily,  and  there  was  a 
warm  welcome  for  the  children.  There  was 
some  trouble  at  the  start.  Many  of  the  children 
were  from  homes  of  the  Catholic  parentage, 
and  the  rumor  spread  that  the  day  home  was 
started  to  train  them  away  from  their  mother 
church.  So  a  priest  came  to  see  what  those 
women  were  doing,  found  it  was  a  false  rumor 
altogether,  and  bid  them  God-speed  in  the  good 
human  enterprise.  They  taught  them  to  be 
honest  and  true  and  helpful,  and  were  greatly 
[  157] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


encouraged;  for  one  of  them  came  to  me  one 
day  and  said,  with  a  tone  of  satisfaction :  "  You 
have  no  idea  how  those  children  improve !  They 
steal  nothing  now  but  mitts  and  thimbles." 
And  one  day  again  she  told  me  how  a  small 
girl  had  come  in  she  had  not  seen  before,  a 
forlorn  and  neglected  child,  who  sat  down 
quietly,  apart  from  the  other  children,  and  was 
heard  to  murmur  to  herself,  "  It's  just  like 
heaven,  and  there's  no  flies."  It  was  a  swelter- 
ing day  in  the  heart  of  summer;  and,  if  it  be 
true,  as  the  old  Assyrians  held,  that  Beelzebub 
is  the  god  of  flies,  I  thought  there  must  have 
been  a  legion  of  his  creatures  in  the  poor  place 
on  Market  Street  that  day  from  which  the  child 
had  wandered  into  our  cool,  sweet  day  home. 
In  no  long  time  they  must  have  a  matron  to 
take  charge  of  the  place  and  the  children  and 
"  mother "  them,  and  they  found  a  woman  I 
have  always  thought  of  as  one  elected  from 
heaven  for  that  work, —  a  maiden  lady  of  the 
middle  age  from  Concord,  Mass. ;  but,  after 
all  too  brief  a  time,  she  was  taken  from  them 
by  the  white  angel,  Death.  The  children  came 
always  to  our  Easter  festival,  when  plants  and 
flower  seeds  were  given  them  to  take  to  their 
homes  and  nurse.  The  good  matron's  funeral 
[  158] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


service  was  held  in  the  church,  to  which  they 
all  came,  bringing  the  flowers  they  had  nursed, 
—  all  they  had  as  I  guess.  I  was  abroad  that 
summer  when  she  died,  but  they  told  me  how 
the  children  came  and  laid  the  flowers  on  the 
casket  with  tears  and  lamentations.  They  had 
lost  the  mother  who  had  blessed  them  in  His 
name  through  the  two  or  three  years.  The 
day  home  is  still  open,  doing  its  noble  and  beauti- 
ful work.  Eli  Bates,  who  was  one  of  the 
founders  and  most  munificent  maintainers  of  the 
church  through  many  years,  left  the  money  at 
his  death  to  build  a  home  for  the  good  work 
and  for  the  matchless  statue  of  Lincoln  by  St. 
Gaudens  at  the  entrance  of  Lincoln  Park,  and 
for  other  good  uses  I  need  not  name.  And 
now  no  sweeter  memories  of  my  ministry  through 
the  twenty  years  in  our  old  home  city  abide  in 
my  heart  than  these  of  the  good  day  home. 


[  159  ] 


XXI 

Now  I  must  return  to  the  church  and  my 
own  work  there,  in  which  we  were  as  one  family 
in  our  work  and  worship ;  and  I  was  quite  con- 
tent with  my  hearing,  with  no  thought  of  a 
wider.  But  after  some  time  eager  souls  in  the 
society  began  to  talk  about  a  new  adventure. 
It  was  a  far  cry  forty  years  ago  from  the  South 
and  West  Sides  to  Chicago  Avenue  on  the  North 
Side  where  our  church  stood  then,  to  which  some 
came  from  the  distance ;  but  with  this  they  were 
not  content.  We  must  go  to  them  who  would 
not  come  to  us,  they  said.  So  they  proposed 
to  hire  a  hall,  the  Metropolitan  Hall,  the  only 
one  of  note  the  city  had  to  her  name  in  those 
early  times;  and,  if  I  was  willing  to  take  hold 
and  do  the  preaching,  they  would  see  to  the 
funds,  and  we  would  hold  services  there  on 
Sunday  evenings.  A  good  many  would  come 
to  the  hall,  they  said,  who  would  not  go  to  a 
church.  So,  while  I  was  not  hopeful  at  all 
about  the  enterprise,  I  said,  "  I  will  take  the 
services  and  see  what  can  be  done."  These 
[  160  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


services  were  held  through  one  year.  The  con- 
gregations were  large  right  along.  Very  few 
of  our  own  people  came.  Our  own  people  are 
inclined  to  think  that  two  sermons  on  Sunday 
are  like  two  pellets  in  a  potato  popgun:  the 
one  drives  the  other  out.  Those  who  came  were 
mostly  what  we  call  outsiders  of  the  brand  that 
"  go  nowhere  " ;  but  they  came  to  these  meet- 
ings, and,  after  they  closed,  some  came  to  the 
church  and  joined  us  there.  And  for  many 
years  after  some  one  would  tell  me  he  or  she 
had  attended  the  meetings  and  been  helped  by 
them.  Indeed,  when  I  was  near  the  eightieth 
milestone  in  this  journey,  a  gentleman  spoke 
to  me  in  our  church,  told  me  he  had  attended 
those  services,  and  still  remembered  the  sermon 
I  preached  about  what  it  is  to  be  forty.  That 
sermon  with  so  many  more  was  burnt  in  the 
great  fire  also,  yet  I  still  think  it  was  not  very 
dry. 

May  I  mention  one  memory  which  can  never 
grow  dim,  and  went  into  my  heart  to  stay, 
while  perhaps  I  should  leave  it  in  "  the  silence 
of  the  breast"? 

Some  years  after  those  meetings  a  gentleman 
wrote  me  from  California,  to  tell  me  how  he 
had  found  a  poor  fellow  who  had  fallen  very 


SOME  MEMORIES 


low  and  was  dying,  friendless  and  alone.  "  I 
did  what  could  be  done  for  him;  and,  on  the 
last  day  I  was  with  him,  he  told  me  he  had 
lived  in  Chicago  before  he  came  here,  and  had 
attended  those  services  in  the  hall.  Then  he 
reached  under  his  pillow  for  a  small  photograph 
and  said :  *  This  is  the  picture  of  the  man  I  heard 
preach  there.  I  have  always  saved  it.  And 
now  will  you  be  so  kind,  sir,  as  to  pin  it  on  that 
curtain?  I  want  to  see  his  face  the  last  I  can 
see  before  I  die.'  And  it  was  so."  How  I 
love  the  memory  for  his  sake,  the  hapless  man ! 

All  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  and  women 
came  to  the  hall,  and  other  memories  might  be 
touched,  but  not  now,  except  to  say  that  some 
came  from  Boston,  eminences  who  were  in  the 
lecture-field, —  Wendell  Phillips,  I  think,  and 
Mr.  Emerson,  who  said  to  me,  as  we  walked  from 
the  hall,  very  kind  and  heartening  words  about 
the  sermon  I  cannot  remember  and  yet  cannot 
forget:  my  brethren  in  the  ministry  will  know 
what  I  mean.  Some  things  I  had  said  were 
also  printed  in  the  Christian  Register  —  thanks 
be! — and  in  other  journals.  And  then  some- 
thing befell  I  could  no  more  have  dreamed  of 
than  the  little  maid  of  two  years  in  our  home. 

An  invitation  came  asking  me  to  take  the 
[  16*] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


services  for  a  Sunday  in  Music  Hall,  where 
Theodore  Parker  had  preached,  with  a  matchless 
power  and  an  eloquence  quite  unique,  for  ten 
years,  and  before  this  through  seven  years  in 
the  old  Melodeon.  He  died  in  May,  I860. 
Five  years  ago  last  summer  I  laid  my  hand  in 
reverence  on  his  grave  in  Florence.  Since  his 
death  the  pulpit-platform  had  been  "  supplied." 
It  was  a  great  wonder,  this  invitation,  but  was 
so  warm  that  I  could  not  say  them  nay ;  and 
so  I  went  down,  as  we  say,  with  my  heart  in 
my  mouth,  to  find  such  a  crowd  as  I  had  not 
dreamed  of,  and  the  hall  so  vast  that,  when  I 
had  spoken  for  two  or  three  minutes,  the  fear 
clutched  me  that  I  was  not  heard.  So  I  paused 
and  held  out  my  hand  to  a  man  in  the  far-away 
top  gallery  who  was  leaning  forward  listening, 
as  it  seemed,  for  all  he  was  worth,  and  said 
quietly,  "  Can  you  hear  me,  sir,  up  there  ?  " 
He  moved  his  head  with  emphasis  the  right  way. 
I  thanked  him.  There  was  a  broad  smile  all 
over  the  place,  and  I  went  on  to  the  end,  with 
no  more  fear  about  that  which  is  high.  And 
they  thanked  me  with  effusion ;  you  may  trust 
Boston  for  that  —  leastwise  I  do  and  have  done 
these  forty  years  —  and  I  went  home  rejoicing. 
I  had  been  heard  in  Music  Hall. 
[  163  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Then  in  no  long  time,  to  my  still  greater 
wonder,  a  "  call "  came  from  the  society  to 
come  down  and  be  their  minister.  It  was  a 
strong  and  urgent  invitation,  signed  by  Mr. 
Emerson,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  other  men  of 
note,  with  a  letter  also  of  sixteen  pages  from 
Wendell  Phillips,  setting  forth  the  reasons  why 
I  should  come  and  must  come.  But  I  may  say 
in  all  sincerity  that,  so  far  as  I  remember,  the 
day,  never  came  when  I  was  tempted  to  hear 
that  call.  I  knew  in  some  way  what  I  could  do, 
but  beyond  all  dubitation  what  I  could  not  do. 
No  light  shone  for  me  on  Music  Hall :  it  lay  on 
my  church  in  Chicago.  I  must  stay  right  there, 
and  the  wisest  of  all  my  counsellors  said  I  must 
not  go.  So  I  said,  "  I  cannot  come,"  and  this 
was  final.  This  was  forty  years  ago,  and  there 
has  been  no  moment  when  I  have  felt  I  was  mis- 
taken; but,  if  I  should  say  I  was  not  moved, 
that  would  not  be  true,  or  the  church  was  not 
glad  when  I  told  them  about  my  conclusion. 
They  gave  us  a  reception  and  a  feast  of  fat 
things,  but  not  "  with  wine  on  the  lees  well 
refined." 

Another  call  came  presently  that  searched 
me  through  and  through,  from  the  Second 
Church  in  Brooklyn.  Their  minister,  Nahor  A. 
[  164] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Staples,  a  man  of  brilliant  and  most  beautiful 
promise,  was  dead.  He  was  dear  to  me  as 
Jonathan  was  to  David,  was  the  minister  of 
our  church  in  Milwaukee  when  we  went  West; 
and  it  was  on  my  part  certainly  a  case  of  love 
at  first  sight.  We  would  write  to  each  other 
once  a  week  about  the  Sunday's  sermons,  to 
find  usually  how  nearly  we  had  touched  the 
same  thought  and  theme,  and  tease  each  other 
now  and  then  as  lovers  will  —  I  mean  men  of 
course.  One  week  I  wrote  to  kim  in  great  glee. 
A  man  of  eminence  in  the  city,  who  had  come 
to  our  church,  was  taken  insane,  and  would  not 
have  any  man  save  myself  in  his  room.  And 
so  I  was  with  him  about  two  weeks,  until  the 
proper  arrangements  were  made  to  care  for  and 
keep  him.  The  family  was  grateful  for  such 
service  as  I  could  give,  and  made  me  a  hand- 
some present ;  for  they  were  very  rich.  I  needed 
a  good  watch.  The  children  had  mauled  the  old 
one  until  it  was  no  good.  So  we  agreed,  in 
the  living-room,  that  I  should  have  a  good  one 
of  gold  with  part  of  the  money.  It  is  beating 
over  my  heart  as  I  write.  Then  I  must  needs 
tell  my  dear  friend  all  about  it;  and,  in  his 
answer  to  my  letter,  he  said :  "  I  am  glad  you 
have  got  the  gold  watch,  but  I  think  my  preach- 
[  165  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ing  will  never  drive  any  man  out  of  his  mind. 
So  I  shall  have  to  wear  my  old  silver  machine 
to  the  end  of  time."  He  resigned  his  charge 
in  Milwaukee  early  in  the  war,  to  be  chaplain 
of  the  Seventh  Wisconsin  Regiment;  but  his 
health  broke,  and  after  some  months  he  found 
he  must  resign.  Rev.  Samuel  Longfellow  had 
been  the  minister,  and  the  first,  if  I  remember 
well,  of  the  Second  Church  in  Brooklyn  through 
some  years,  and  had  done  a  right  good  work 
there,  but  had  resigned.  Then  Mr.  Staples 
was  called  to  the  church,  and  it  was  a  memorable 
ministry;  but  the  seeds  of  consumption,  which 
had  been  furthered,  if  not  sown,  when  he  was 
chaplain,  began  presently  to  germinate.  We 
had  kept  in  close  touch  with  each  other  and 
had  been  much  together  in  one  or  more  summer 
vacations.  He  was  still  the  friend  dearest  to 
me  in  the  brotherhood;  and,  when  I  found  the 
end  was  near,  I  came  down  to  his  home  and  was 
with  him  in  the  last  moments.  Went  with  the 
dust  to  the  burial  at  Mendon,  Mass.,  his  native 
place;  and  on  the  next  Sunday  preached  some 
sort  of  memorial  sermon  to  his  people. 

He  had  said  he  would  love  to  have  them  call 
me;  but  to  this,  so  far  as  I  remember,  I  made 
no  answer.     I  think  he  had  also  suggested  this 
[  166  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


to  some  members  of  the  church,  but  am  not  sure, 
only  that  a  call  came  presently;  and  now  I 
do  remember  the  pain  it  gave  me  to  say  I  could 
not  come.  The  light  lay  on  the  church  I  loved. 
I  could  not  leave  them  even  for  his  sake  and 
theirs  who  I  was  sure  would  fain  have  me  come. 
This  was  forty  years  ago,  if  I  am  right  in  the 
memory.  And  now  I  can  truly  say  that  through 
all  the  years  I  have  felt  only  and  always  the 
same  deep  satisfaction  that  I  could  not  hear 
the  call,  as  I  am  prone  to  think  they  have  also ; 
for  they  found  the  one  man,  as  I  love  to  believe, 
in  the  whole  brotherhood  of  our  ministers  who 
could  fill  the  chasm  made  by  my  brother's  death 
—  my  son  as  I  have  loved  and  love  still  to 
call  him  —  John  White  Chadwick,  whose  praise 
is  in  all  our  churches,  our  noble  minister  in 
holy  things,  and  sweet  singer  whose  hymn,  "  It 
singeth  low  in  every  heart,"  will  still  be  sung 
when  he  and  we  are  all  a  handful  of  dust. 


[  167] 


XXII 

The  time  came,  before  the  war  was  ended, 
when  we  began  to  talk  about  a  new  church. 
We  were  still  growing;  and,  when  a  young 
church  has  no  room  to  grow,  it  will  begin  to 
grow  stunted.  Our  audience-room  had  to  serve 
all  purposes.  We  had  no  Sunday-school  room, 
lecture-room,  or  place  for  social  gatherings, 
and  were  cramped  at  every  turn.  So  early  in 
1865  some  of  the  leading  men  in  the  church 
secured  a  lot,  as  the  first  step  to  be  taken  in 
the  new  enterprise;  and  in  June  there  was 
another,  and  this  time  a  most  pleasant  surprise 
sprung  on  me. 

I  was  tired  with  the  long  strain  of  such  service 
as  I  could  render  in  the  war  and  the  church 
and  parish,  but  did  not  tell  the  people  or  indeed 
quite  know  myself ;  but  the  truth  is  I  was  preach- 
ing tired  sermons,  some  of  them  so  poor  and 
fatuous  that  they  made  me  sick,  and  I  burnt 
them  off-hand.  The  wise  heads  in  the  church 
knew  what  was  the  matter;  and  on  a  Saturday 
evening  one  of  them  came  to  see  me  and  said, 
[  168  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"  We  want  you  to  take  a  good  rest  this  sum- 
mer, to  go  over  to  jour  old  home  and  see  the 
folk;  and  here  is  a  check  for  your  expenses." 
The  money  the  church  gave  me  then  and  after- 
ward before  I  started  would  have  been  equal 
to  three  years'  steady  work  at  the  anvil,  so 
generous  they  were  and  eager  to  send  me  home 
rejoicing.  This  was  fifteen  years  after  we 
landed  in  New  York;  and  in  the  six  years  of 
our  life  in  Chicago  I  had  dreamed  that  some 
time  in  the  future  I  might  be  able  to  cross  the 
ocean  to  the  old  homeland,  see  my  mother 
again,  the  kinsfolk  and  the  many  friends. 
And,  lo!  here  I  was  bidden  to  go  forthwith 
"  gold  to  give  and  gold  to  spend." 

I  would  fain  have  the  dear  home  mother  go 
with  me ;  but  here  the  promise  — "  Whither  thou 
goest  I  will  go  " —  must  not  be  thought  of. 
She  must  mind  the  home  and  the  children,  who 
were  too  young  to  leave.  So  I  went  alone,  and 
all  the  way  over  on  the  steamer  —  New  York 
—  I  dreamed  dreams  and  saw  visions.  I  had 
told  them  I  was  coming,  made  a  bee-line  from 
Liverpool  to  Leeds;  and,  when  I  came  to  the 
home  where  my  mother  was,  walked  right  in, — 
no  knocking  at  that  door  of  all  the  doors  on  the 
earth.  She  was  sitting  in  the  same  old  chair 
[  169  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


where  I  had  left  her;  but  I  think  it  was  not 
the  same  house,  and  her  hair  now  was  white 
as  snow.  I  said,  "  Mother."  She  looked  up 
with  a  touch  of  wonder,  and  said,  "  My  lad, 
I  do  not  know  thy  face,  but  that  is  thy  voice." 
And  then  she  rose  up  and  kissed  me,  while  the 
tears  ran  down  her  fine  old  face.  Presently 
I  must  go  to  Ilkley,  where  I  had  lived  twelve 
years  as  boy  and  man;  and  there  for  the  first 
time  in  my  manhood  I  kissed  a  man,  my  dear 
old  friend  John  Dobson,  who  had  done  more 
for  me  in  loving  care  and  counsel,  as  I  have 
said  before,  than  any  or  perhaps  all  the  men  I 
had  known  through  those  years  so  momentous 
to  a  youth.  He  had  kept  track  of  my  life 
through  the  fifteen  years,  and  was  well  aware 
of  the  change  in  my  Christian  fellowship;  but 
he  did  not  turn  a  hair.  And,  when  I  preached 
in  our  Unitarian  church  in  Leeds,  he  came  to 
hear  me,  and  was  still  the  same  fast  friend, 
heart  fast.  My  mother  also  went  with  me  that 
morning;  and  I  still  remember  so  well,  as  we 
walked  home  arm  in  arm  after  the  service,  she 
said,  "  I  am  not  sure  that  I  understood  all 
thy  sermon,  my  lad,  or  can  believe  as  thou  does ; 
but  I  do  believe  in  thee."  Then  she  squeezed 
my  arm,  and  I  was  quite  content.  It  is  among 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  pleasant  memories  also  of  my  first  visit  that 
I  found  every  one  of  the  kinsfolk  and  friends 
I  had  longed  to  see  once  more  alive  and  well, 
and  that  I  could  fall  easily  into  the  dialect,  as 
we  sat  by  the  fireside,  I  had  taken  so  much  pains 
to  revise  or  lay  away  when  I  found  my  way 
into  the  pulpit.  That  was  the  first,  and  lay 
deepest  in  my  nature.  And  so  I  may  say,  as 
the  conclusion  of  this  memory,  my  first  visit 
was  the  cream  of  the  bowl. 

Another  memory  follows  I  have  hesitated  to 
dwell  on,  but  find  I  must,  foolish  as  it  may  seem 
to  you,  but  dear  to  me;  for  here  I  returned 
to  the  days  of  my  youth.  It  was  twenty-seven 
years  then  since  I  had  left  the  place  where  I 
was  brought  up.  My.  people  left  the  year 
after,  so  that  I  had  not  cared  to  cross  the  moor 
more  than  once  or  twice  in  the  twelve  years  of 
my  life  in  Wharf edale ;  and  I  was  "  as  a  child 
that  is  weaned  from  his  mother."  But,  when 
we  were  well  rooted  down  in  the  new  life,  mem- 
ories of  the  old  home-nest  in  Washburndale 
began  to  steal  out  from  the  mists  and  grow  ever 
more  dear  to  me  as  they  do  to  us  all  who  leave 
the  old  life  for  the  new.  The  longing  grew 
strong  to  make  pilgrimage  there  if  the  way 
should  open,  and  be  just  a  boy  once  more  by 

[  m  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  grace  of  heaven.  And  I  knew  what  I 
wanted  to  see  and  to  do  when  I  came  there. 
There  was  one  well  at  which  I  would  drink  my 
fill,  for  the  water  was  as  sweet  to  my  heart  as 
the  water  was  to  David  in  the  well  of  Bethle- 
hem by  the  gates.  Then  there  was  the  great 
holly-bush  on  the  hill,  where  as  a  boy  I  had  gone 
year  after  year  to  look  at  the  blackbird's  nest, 
where  one  year,  as  I  remembered  still,  that 
brigand,  the  cuckoo,  had  laid  an  egg,  and  when 
I  went  one  evening  to  see  how  the  blue  pen 
fledglings  fared,  there  was  the  young  cuckoo 
sprawling  all  over  the  place,  while  the  young 
blackbirds  lay  on  the  grass  below.  There  was 
also  that  shadowy  reach  in  the  stream  where 
the  water  came  down  from  the  moor  to  turn 
the  great  overshot  wheel  for  the  factory,  and 
at  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel  the  biggest  trout  I 
ever  failed  to  catch.  He  would  look  at  me  and 
shake  his  tail,  as  if  he  would  say,  "  It  is  no 
use:  I  am  here  to  stay,"  and  then  float  quietly 
into  the  tunnel.  Then  there  were  those  swal- 
lows that  came  every  year  to  build  their  nests 
under  the  eaves  of  one  house  right  in  the  sun's 
eye,  and  went  away  when  the  summer  waned, 
after  sitting  in  council  on  the  roof -tree, —  went 
[  172  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  knew  not  where,  and  even  my  father  could 
not  tell  me.  And  there  was  the  one  oak-tree 
in  the  pasture  where  I  would  sit  and  dream, 
when  the  fit  was  on  me,  of  the  great  and  won- 
derful world  beyond  the  valley  and  the  moors. 
I  seemed  to  own  that  oak. 

So  I  would  dream  of  these  in  my  new  life, 
and  wonder  if  they  were  all  there  as  when  I  left 
them.  Well,  I  lost  scant  time  when  I  came  to 
my  old  home-nest ;  and,  will  you  believe  me,  the 
blackbird's  nest  was  there  in  the  holly-bush, 
and  the  old  birds  were  busy  feeding  their  young. 
I  stood  quietly  at  some  small  distance.  They 
did  not  seem  afraid  of  me,  and  I  wondered 
if  they  had  chirruped  the  tradition  down  of  the 
boy  who  came  to  look  at  the  nest  and  never 
harmed  or  robbed  them.  Yes,  and  the  same  old 
trout  was  there,  or  another  perhaps  not  quite 
so  big.  But  he  knew  the  old  trick  with  the 
tail  after  taking  my  photograph  on  those  eyes, 
and  floated  away  into  the  dark.  The  beryl 
brown  water  in  the  well  was  sweet  also  to  me 
as  the  water  in  the  well  by  the  gate  was  to  the 
soldier  and  king,  and  I  drank  my  fill.  But 
the  swallows  came  no  more  to  build  their  nests 
under  the  eaves  and  sit  in  council  on  the  roof- 
[  173  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


tree.  The  quiet  home  had  been  turned  into  a 
noisy  beer  saloon,  and  they  would  not  stay, 
the  good  swallows. 

There  was  the  oak  on  the  slope  of  the  pasture 
too,  my  oak;  but  it  seemed  to  have  grown 
smaller  in  the  many  years.  I  was  staying  with 
the  owner  of  the  pasture,  who  remembered  our 
family  and  kept  the  inn.  He  went  with  me 
over  the  place,  and,  when  we  came  to  the  tree, 
I  said,  "  It  is  not  nearly  so  large,  sir,  as  it  was 
when  I  was  a  boy."  But  he  answered :  "  It  is 
larger.  Your  eyes  are  not  the  same:  they  are 
the  eyes  of  a  grown  man."  But  before  we  left 
the  pasture  he  said :  "  It  may  be  the  tree  needs 
some  nourishing  after  all.  But,  whether  or 
no,  for  the  sake  of  old  lang  syne  I  will  spread 
a  load  of  manure  about  the  roots,  happen  that 
will  help  it  to  grow  a  bit  faster."  And  after 
I  came  home  I  heard  this  had  been  done.  And 
now  do  you  say  this  is  indeed  speaking  as  a 
child,  you  should  put  away  childish  things, 
you  old  man  of  fourscore?  I  have  but  one 
answer.  I  was  a  child  and  a  boy  again  for 
one  good  week  in  the  old  home-nest;  or,  if  you 
say  the  boy  is  father  of  the  man,  I  was  that 
boy's  son  with  the  white  hair  already  stealing 
over  and  through  the  brown. 

[ 


SOME  MEMORIES 


In  the  mountains  of  New  Hampshire  one 
summer  my  host  told  me  of  a  man  who  had  come 
from  "  away  out  West "  to  find  what  was  left 
of  the  old  home  where  he  was  raised.  There 
was  a  well  on  the  place.  The  waters  were  sweet 
to  him  as  mine  were  to  me.  He  had  brought  his 
three  daughters  with  him;  and,  when  they  came 
to  the  well,  there  was  a  dipper.  But  this  would 
not  do.  He  must  needs  kneel  down  on  one  stone, 
as  he  had  done  in  the  old  time,  to  drink;  and, 
when  he  rose  from  the  worship  at  his  holy  well, 
he  said :  "  Now,  daughters,  you  must  all  kneel 
down  on  that  stone,  and  drink  for  father's  sake. 
Never  mind  your  gowns.  If  you  hurt  them, 
you  shall  have  new  ones.  I  can  buy  them,  but 
money  cannot  buy  what  kneeling  on  that  stone 
means  to  me."  And  I  am  brother  in  this  way 
to  the  man  I  never  saw  to  whom  the  waters 
were  so  sweet. 

There  are  many  more  memories  I  must  not 
touch,  of  my  visit  to  the  old  home-nest,  but  tell 
you  now  that,  when  the  time  came  to  return, 
I  was  quite  as  glad  to  take  my  steamer  and 
come  home  as  some  ten  weeks  before  I  had  been 
to  go  home.  More  glad,  indeed;  for  here  were 
my  treasures  and  here  my  life.  For,  when  we 
have  come  here  to  find  what  we  found,  the 
[175] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


heart  is  not  divided;  and  it  is  not  needful  for 
us  to  "  be  sure  we  are  off  with  the  old  love 
before  we  are  on  with  the  new,"  because  the 
heart  in  us  grows  large  enough  to  hold  both 
without  the  least  constriction.  But,  when  we 
come  here,  if  we  can  find  nothing  so  good  or  fair 
as  it  was  in  England,  shall  I  say,  or  Scotland, 
then  the  best  we  can  do  is  to  stay  there,  or,  if 
we  are  here,  to  go  home  again. 

So  I  came  home  most  gladly ;  for  here  we  had 
found  room,  my  wife  and  I,  to  grow  and  to  be 
as  we  never  could  have  found  it  in  the  dear 
and  ever  dear  motherland. 


[176] 


XXIII 

On  my  welcome  home  I  must  not  linger:  that 
was  all  the  heart  could  desire.  I  will  venture 
to  say  also  that  my  rest  and  re-creation  was 
a  good  investment.  Such  sermons  as  I  could 
preach  did  not  make  me  sick  of  heart.  I  found 
also  that  the  purpose  to  build  was  no  "  will-o'- 
the-wisp,"  but  a  steadfast  purpose.  Subscrip- 
tions were  made  large  and  generous:  the  build- 
ing committee  was  chosen,  and  the  architect. 
And  the  story  was  told  —  I  will  not  vouch  for  it 
—  that  the  committee  instructed  him  to  measure 
the  largest  Protestant  church  in  the  city,  and 
draw  the  plans  for  ours  a  foot  longer  and  a 
foot  wider.  I  say  I  do  not  vouch  for  that 
story.  The  plans  were  drawn,  and  the  architect 
reported  that  the  foundation  on  which  the  north- 
ern tower  must  stand  was  not  safe.  The  mother 
church  on  the  South  Side  had  built  a  tower 
on  such  a  foundation,  and  it  had  sunk,  bringing 
a  part  of  the  wall  down  with  it.  So  great  piles 
were  driven  down  for  our  north  tower,  to  make 
#11  safe  and  sound.  The  corner-stone  was  laid 
[  177  ] 


in  August,  1867;  and  then  our  temple  grew 
as  grows  the  grass.  No  labor  troubles  or  in 
the  board.  As  I  sit  here  I  hear  only  the  sounds 
of  the  workmen.  The  wisest  and  best  master- 
builder  in  the  city,  to  my  own  mind,  George 
Chambers,  a  member  of  the  church,  saw  to  the 
upbuilding.  He  was  not  a  rich  man  ;  but,  when 
the  board  called  for  his  bill,  he  said,  "  There 
is  no  bill:  this  is  my  subscription."  There  was 
but  one  man  hurt,  a  laborer,  whose  shoulder 
was  bruised  by  a  stone.  The  chairman  of  the 
committee  sent  him  home  and  told  him  to  stay, 
there  until  he  was  well,  and  his  wages  would 
be  paid.  Many  weeks  passed  before  Mr.  Hub- 
bard  thought  it  was  time  to  look  him  up,  and 
sent  a  man  to  see  how  he  fared,  who  reported 
that  he  had  been  well  some  weeks,  but  had  not 
felt  like  reporting  for  work,  only  well  enough 
to  draw  his  wages,  for  which  he  sent  his  wife. 

Our  sister  church,  Orthodox  Congregational, 
on  the  next  corner  to  ours  had  built  a  beautiful 
edifice,  and  had  set  a  fine  fragment  from  Plym- 
outh Rock  over  the  main  doorway.  This  was 
all  right,  but  we  must  also  have  a  stone  of 
memorial  to  set  over  our  main  doorway.  I 
mused  and  pondered  about  that  stone  quite  a 
while;  and  then  one  day  the  idea  flashed  on  me 


SOME  MEMORIES 


that  I  must  write  to  a  lady,  a  member  of  our 
church,  who  was  staying  at  Geneva  in  Switzer- 
land, and  ask  her  if  it  was  possible  to  procure 
a  stone  from  the  very  spot  on  the  hill  above  the 
city  where  Servetus,  our  faithful  martyr,  stood 
when  he  was  burnt  by  the  fiat  of  Calvin,  and 
send  it  over  to  set  above  the  main  doorway  of 
the  new  church.  She  saw  the  proper  authori- 
ties, and  they  gave  her  leave,  as  she  told  me, 
most  cheerfully  to  take  the  stone;  and,  when 
she  went  with  a  man  to  do  the  delving,  there 
was  quite  a  company  assembled,  who  gave  her 
a  cheer.  They  also  were  glad  to  have  the  stone 
sent  over  to  stand  for  a  memorial  in  the  church 
built  by  those  of  the  faith  their  martyr  died 
to  maintain  as  he  had  lived.  It  came  to  us 
safe  and  sound,  and  was  duly  set  over  our 
main  doorway,  with  the  inscription,  "  Champel, 
1553."  And  I  may  mention  the  fact,  before 
I  pass  on,  that  in  the  great  fire  which  so  soon 
laid  our  beautiful  church  in  ruin  the  stone  was 
not  touched,  or  a  large  space  of  the  wall,  where 
it  continueth  unto  this  day. 

It  was  indeed  a  beautiful  church,  and  good 

as  hands  could  make  it.     The  first  purpose  was 

to  build  the  front  and  the  side  walls  of  stone 

and  the  back  of  brick  which  would  come  cheaper. 

[  179] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  did  not  like  this,  but  would  love  to  see  the 
back  stone  also,  and,  as  we  say,  all  of  a  piece; 
and  there  were  others  of  my  mind.  So  the 
vote  was  like  to  be  about  even  when  one  said: 
"  Suppose  the  Lord  should  come  up  from  the 
lake.  The  first  thing  he  would  see  would  be 
the  brick  back,  and  he  would  not  like  it."  It 
was  only  a  bit  of  humor,  a  feather-weight,  as  it 
were;  but  it  turned  the  scale.  I  see  the  lovely 
interior  of  the  great  audience-room  across  the 
mists  of  thirty-two  years,  the  wood-work  blended 
of  butternut  and  black  walnut,  the  roof  azure, 
set  with  stars;  but  the  stars  were  a  mistake, 
and,  I  am  real  sorry  to  say,  a  sham,  the  only 
false  note  in  the  fine  harmony.  They  were 
stuck  on  I  know  not  how,  but  still  remember 
how  after  some  time  there  would  here  and  there 
one  get  loose  and  come  teetering  down  like 
butterflies  on  the  congregation. 

In  the  summer  of  1869  the  church  was  dedi- 
cated. Dr.  Bellows  came  from  New  York  to 
preach  the  sermon,  with  quite  a  gathering  of 
the  brethren  from  far  and  wide  to  take  some 
part  in  the  services.  The  church  was  of  one 
mind, —  that  I  should  write  a  hymn  of  dedica- 
tion. I  had  never  done  such  a  thing.  Still, 
the  hymn  was  written,  and,  as  the  Scotch  say, 
[  180  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  thought  it  "  was  no  that  bad."  You  will  find 
it  in  our  service  and  hymn  book  if  you  care  to 
look  it  up.  I  use  it  once  a  year  when  we  open 
the  church  after  the  summer  vacation,  but  at 
no  other  time,  and  was  glad  some  years  ago 
when  Dr.  Hunter,  then  the  minister  of  the  great 
Congregational  church  in  Glasgow,  but  now  of 
the  Weigh  House  Chapel  in  London,  wrote  to 
ask  me  if  he  might  print  the  hymn  in  a  book  he 
was  compiling  for  his  church.  I  was  glad  to 
give  him  the  liberty.  It  is  also  in  an  Episcopal 
collection  used  in  England.  Dear  friends,  par- 
don the  toot  once  more.  It  was  my  first  ven- 
ture, my  first-born  in  this  sort,  and  I  may  plead 
I  have  only  written  one  more:  that  was  for  the 
restoration  after  the  great  calamity, —  the  Chi- 
cago fire. 

Dr.  Johnson  said  of  Dr.  Watts's  hymns,  "  He 
has  done  the  best  where  no  man  has  done  well." 
And  I  am  satisfied  to  think  I  did  my  best,  while 
Gabriel  could  do  no  more.  It  was  a  grand  ser- 
mon and  a  noble  service.  The  church,  still  in 
her  youth  of  ten  years,  had  subscribed  gener- 
ously when  we  set  out  to  build,  and,  when  the 
fund  was  exhausted,  built  by  faith,  which  was 
not  exhausted;  and  the  order  was  made  for  a 
subscription  on  the  day  of  dedication.  The 


SOME  MEMORIES 


committee  saw  Dr.  Bellows  about  this  and  the 
debt  which  must  be  reduced  and  would  be  on 
that  day ;  and  toward  the  close  of  his  great  dis- 
course he  took  hold  of  the  question  as  he  only 
could,  and  set  the  people  a-fire.  I  have  wit- 
nessed no  such  fervor  in  all  these  years  for  this 
purpose  as  on  that  day.  It  was  my  lot  to 
stand  up  before  them  to  say  such  words  as  came 
to  me,  and  report  the  subscriptions.  They 
pelted  me  with  them  large  or  small,  and  the 
small,  as  I  well  knew,  large  for  the  givers,  bless 
them!  I  had  wanted  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  to  take  part  and  lot  in  the  good  work, 
and  I  think  this  was  done  that  morning.  Quite 
a  number  who  had  given  gave  again.  Good 
men  were  there  from  the  mother  church,  gave 
nobly,  and  some  Methodists  from  the  church 
near  at  hand.  Saints  and  sinners  were  all  of 
one  mind;  and  I  mention  the  sinners,  because 
I  still  remember  one  man  I  loved  for  his  manful- 
ness,  but  could  not  quite  call  him  a  saint.  He 
gave  a  large  subscription,  and,  when  we  made  the 
second  rally,  called  out  a  thousand  dollars  more. 
This  was  a  surprise  to  me.  I  met  him  on  the 
street  soon  after,  and  thanked  him.  "  Do  you 
know,"  he  said,  "  why  I  chipped  in  again  ?  " 
"  Yes,"  I  said.  "  It  was  because  you  have  a 
[  182  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


big  heart."  "  Not  at  all,"  he  answered  cheer- 
ily. "  But  when  Dr.  Bellows  got  that  ship  in 
the  storm  [meaning  the  church],  you  know,  and 
said,  '  Will  you  let  her  go  down  under  her 

load?  '  I  said,  *  I  will  be [something  very 

bad]  if  I  do  for  one.'  So  I  gave  the  other  thou- 
sand." And  I  hoped  the  angel  of  the  records 
missed  or  left  out  the  bad  word.  I  have  no 
idea  how  far  we  should  have  gone  that  day 
when  the  doctor  said  to  me :  "  Stop  now,  and  sit 
down.  They  have  done  enough.  In  all  con- 
science do  not  ask  them  for  any  more  money." 
So  I  sat  down.  We  sang, — 

"  From  all  that  dwell  below  the  skies." 

The  great  and  good  man  —  for  he  was  both, 
and  among  the  greatest  and  best  I  have  known 
—  gave  us  the  benediction,  and  we  went  on  our 
way  rejoicing.  They  had  subscribed  about 
sixty  thousand  dollars !  The  records  of  the 
church  were  all  lost  in  the  fire,  so  that  I  cannot 
give  the  figures.  I  notice  in  a  book  printed  in 
England  the  amount  is  given  of  seventy  thou- 
sand, but  I  think  this  is  not  true. 

I  saw  a  picture  some  years  ago  in  a  gallery 
which  blends  with  the  memory   of  our  brave, 
new  church.     In  the  foreground  was  a  pretty 
[  183  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


farmstead  almost  mint  new,  and  in  the  back- 
ground a  log  house  on  the  edge  of  the  clearing, 
deserted  and  almost  hidden  in  wild  pines.  There 
was  only  one  human  figure  in  the  picture,  the 
good  man  of  the  farmstead,  leaning  on  a  rail 
fence  and  looking  at  the  log  house  with  the 
light  in  his  eyes,  the  tender  light  of  the  days 
that  are  dead.  That  was  once  his  house,  as  I 
read  the  story,  where  he  came  long  ago  with 
his  newly  wedded  wife  to  make  a  home,  and  there 
their  children  were  born  and  raised;  and  the 
memories  of  the  old  home  thronged  in  his  heart 
as  he  leaned  on  the  fence.  So  there  was  a 
touch  of  tender  regret  in  our  hearts  I  think, 
or  know  rather,  when  we  were  homed  in  the 
large  and  good  new  church.  The  old  home,  to 
be  sure,  was  not  deserted:  it  was  bought  and 
occupied  by  the  Baptist  society  whose  smaller 
church  we  rented  for  our  first  services ;  and  my 
small  boy  was  much  interested  when  they  put 
down  what  he  called  their  bath  tub.  Yet  it 
was  still  our  old  home  where  we  "  had  such  good 
times,"  while  we  were  proud  of  the  new  one. 
That  was  all  the  heart  could  desire,  with  a 
much  larger  congregation,  and  all  the  room  we 
wanted  for  every  purpose.  Yet,  as  I  sit  here 
this  morning,  I  see  the  first  home  in  the  tender 
[  184  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


light  of  the  days  that  are  dead,  not  with  sorrow, 
but  with  thanksgiving,  for  the  good  times  in 
the  span  of  the  ten  years. 

Two  good  and  fruitful  years  were  given  us 
in  the  new  church,  in  which  I  for  one  certainly 
began  to  feel  very  much  at  home,  and  then 
the  great  calamity  fell  on  our  city  when  the 
church  and  the  homes  were  whelmed  in  the 
common  ruin.  This  memory  I  must  touch  at 
a  later  time. 


[  185  ] 


My  dear  old  friend,  the  editor,  says,  in  a 
note  that  came  the  other  day,  "  I  have  not 
wanted  to  remind  you  of  the  memories  I  prom- 
ised our  readers  should  be  completed  when  you 
struck  work  last  spring,  and  we  shall  be  glad 
to  begin  again  when  you  are  ready." 

It  was  a  true  and  timely  word,  subject  to  a 
slight  correction.  Paul  says,  a  man  who  desires 
to  be  a  bishop  should  be  "  no  striker,"  and  herein 
I  plead  not  guilty.  The  truth  is  I  was  tired 
and  wanted  to  take  a  vacation,  quite  intending 
to  finish  them  in  the  fall  or  the  early  winter. 
But  in  the  fall  the  spirit  did  not  move  me  —  my 
editor  will  know  what  I  mean  —  or  they,  did 
not  seem  ripe  for  the  reaping.  So,  like  the  men 
in  the  parable,  I  began  to  make  excuses;  and 
my  failure,  with  many  more  in  all  these  years, 
must  be  counted  once  more  among  the  good 
intentions  that  I  love  to  imagine  pave  the  way 
to  heaven. 

I  notice,  as  you  may  perhaps  remember  who 
read  the  twenty-three  chapters,  that  we  had 
[  186  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


begun  to  feel  at  home  in  the  brave  new  church, 
too  large  as  yet  for  our  need,  but  not  for  our 
hope  and  our  fine  ambition,  while  we  still  loved 
to  remember  the  little  church  on  the  corner  in 
which  we  met  for  worship  and  work  about  nine 
years.  The  Baptist  society  had  bought  the 
dear  old  place,  and  this  was  all  to  the  good  for 
me,  because  my  mother  was  a  Baptist,  and 
would  be  glad  to  hear  of  this.  And  I  had 
said  to  our  people,  when  the  place  became  too 
strait  for  us,  when  we  have  no  more  room  to 
grow,  we  shall  begin  to  grow  stunted. 

Well,  there  was  no  danger  now  in  that  direc- 
tion. And  then  I  remembered  what  my  mother 
would  say  to  our  tailor  when  he  came  to  measure 
me  for  a  new  suit :  "  Make  it  big,  John :  give 
him  plenty  of  room  to  grow  into  the  things. 
He  will  be  sure  to  outgrow  them  before  he  has 
another  suit."  And  this  was  true,  for  I  was 
a  lusty  fellow;  but  for  what  you  would  call  a 
good  fit,  when  I  donned  them,  they  were  a  sight 
to  see,  and  sadly  discounted  the  joy  and  pride 
of  the  Easter  Sunday  when  we  went  to  the  old 
mother  church  two  miles  away  where  we  were 
all  baptized.  The  church  in  which  Edward 
Fairfax,  the  uncle  of  the  great  general,  and 
who  made  the  first  and  still  the  best  translation 
[  187  ] 


'SOME  MEMORIES 


of  the  "  Jerusalem  Delivered,"  was  buried  in 
1635  "  under  a  marble  tomb,"  and  who  in  1620 
fell  into  sore  trouble  touching  the  witchcraft 
done  on  his  daughter,  of  which  he  wrote  the 
story  I  may  tell  in  brief  when  I  have  finished 
these  memories. 

I  told  the  story  of  the  garments  in  some 
speech  or  sermon  to  the  people  for  a  parable, 
wherewith  they  were  well  pleased  when  I  made 
the  application ;  for  we  all  love  parables  which 
encourage  the  hope  that  is  not  seen,  and  mine 
came  true.  The  big  church  was  well  filled  in 
the  first  year:  the  Sunday-school  also  prospered 
finely.  There  was  ample  room  for  our  social 
gatherings,  and  then  in  the  early  spring  of 
1871  there  came  a  great  wonder.  I  was  invited 
to  preach  the  sermon  at  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  British  and  Foreign  Unitarian  Association 
in  London. 

I  could  not  have  dreamed  of  so  great  an  honor 
had  I  been  a  dreamer,  and  I  did  not  let  I  dare 
not  wait  upon  I  would,  when  I  read  the  letter; 
for  my  impulse  was  to  say  no  in  the  cleanest 
words  I  could  muster,  and  thank  them  with  all 
my  heart.  But  now  the  dear  helpmeet,  who  was 
always  my  very  present  help  in  trouble,  wheeled 
promptly  into  line,  after  we  had  held  the  home 

[  188  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


council,  and  said  I  must  accept  the  invitation, 
I  must  not  say  no.  I  must  go,  and  she  would 
go  with  me,  she  did  not  say  to  hold  up  my 
hands,  and  my  heart,  and  there  was  no  need. 
We  would  also  take  the  little  lassie  with  us 
whose  health  had  failed.  The  sea  voyage  and 
the  change  of  climate  would  do  more  for  her 
than  all  the  doctors.  This  was  another  weight 
in  mother's  end  of  the  scale,  and  my  end  went 
up.  And,  if  she  had  not  been  out  of  health, 
she  must  still  have  gone  with  us:  she  was  our 
youngest  daughter,  and  her  mother's  bairn. 
The  sisters  were  well  and  strong:  they  could  be 
left  in  good  care,  and  indeed  could  care  for 
themselves  and  the  home.  But  Annie  clave  to 
her  mother,  who  still  remembered  how  she  must 
leave  her  two  summers  before  when  her  own 
health  failed,  and  I  must  bring  her  down  to 
the  seaside;  remembered  how,  when  we  came 
home,  she  crept  into  her  arms  one  day  and  said, 
"  Mamma,  when  you  were  away,  I  was  so  lone- 
some I  used  to  go  into  the  closet  and  hug  your 
dresses."  How  often  mother  would  tell  the  tiny 
story,  so  sweet  and  pathetic,  as  we  would  sit 
alone,  when  the  dear  child  was  translated  so  that 
she  should  not  see  death;  and  how,  when  her 
own  health  was  broken  and  the  end  drew  near, 
[189] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


she  would  say,  "  I  want  to  go  to  Annie,  I  think 
she  will  want  her  mother  even  in  heaven." 

And  now  may  I  linger  some  moments  before 
we  start  for  London  to  touch  the  memories 
of  the  home  we  were  to  leave,  and  the  children ; 
for  there  may  be  no  place  for  them  afterward. 
I  well  remember  saying  to  my  dear  old  father 
in  the  faith,  Dr.  Furness,  when  they  were  still 
weans  in  the  mother's  constant  care :  "  Do  tell 
me  how  you  managed  to  raise  your  children  to 
such  a  lovely  purpose.  Ours  are  still  young 
and  full  of  life,  for  which  we  are  glad  and 
thankful ;  and  I  should  like  you  to  tell  me  your 
secret."  "  It  is  no  secret,"  he  said,  "  and  very 
simple ;  we  turned  those  words  of  Paul  the  other 
way  about  where  he  says,  '  Children,  obey  your 
parents  in  the  Lord ;  for  this  is  right,'  and  made 
them  read,  *  Parents,  obey  your  children,'  and 
the  new  version  answered  to  a  charm." 

But  how  I  fared  may  perhaps  be  best  told 
in  a  story,  that  will  also  touch  the  charm  of 
the  little  maid  who  was  always  so  bright  and 
winsome.  Her  elder  sister  said  to  me  one  day, 
as  we  sat  all  together,  "  Papa,  I  wish  you  would 
write  your  sermons  on  Monday  and  Tuesday, 
you  are  always  so  cross  on  Saturdays  when  you 
are  busy  and  we  make  a  noise."  This  was  true, 
[190] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  lassie  was  right.  And  so,  after  trying  to 
stand  from  under  to  no  purpose,  I  gave  in  and 
said :  "  Well,  my  dear,  the  new  year  is  close  at 
hand  when  you  know  we  all  begin  to  make  good 
resolutions,  and  I  will  make  one,  I  will  try  after 
New  Year's  —  because  the  holidays  are  a  busy 
time  —  to  write  my  sermons  earlier  in  the  week 
though  I  cannot  promise  to  begin  on  the  Mon- 
day." 

This  pleased  the  children,  you  may  be  sure, 
and  the  father  too,  who  has  loved  to  make  good 
resolutions  all  his  life;  but  the  Christmas-tide 
came,  and  the  new  year,  in  which  there  is  al- 
ways so  much  to  do,  and  I  was  still  driven  who 
would  drive,  so  that  Friday  and  Saturday  found 
me  busy  as  ever.  Meanwhile  my  mentor  was 
watching  me  and  biding  her  time  to  bring  me 
to  book.  So  one  day  she  said,  "  Papa,  you  did 
not  begin  writing  your  sermons  early  in  the 
week  as  you  said  you  would,  you  know,  after 
New  Year's ;  and  you  were  cross  again  on  Sat- 
urday when  we  made  some  noise."  Well,  this 
was  true,  and  I  wist  not  what  I  should  do,  when 
it  came  to  me  in  a  flash  that  I  could  shuffle  out 
of  the  mire  on  a  similitude.  So  I  said  —  oh, 
so  gently !  — "  My  dear,  if  you  should  milk  a 
cow  and  set  the  milk  to  stand  in  a  bowl,  what 


SOME  MEMORIES 


would  that  milk  do?  "  The  answer  I  expected 
was,  it  would  cream  up,  and  then  I  would  say 
that  is  just  what  sermons  have  to  do.  You 
cannot  say  on  Monday,  now  I  will  write  a  ser- 
mon and  go  to  work  and  get  it  done  by  Tuesday 
night:  you  have  to  think  it  over  until,  say, 
Friday  it  must  cream  up,  as  the  milk  does,  you 
know,  in  the  bowl.  This  would  set  me  on  my 
feet ;  but  it  didn't.  My  little  maid  was  listening 
to  our  conference  with  great  interest,  and  said 
suddenly,  "  I  know  what  that  milk  would  do : 
it  would  turn  sour"  She  did  not  point  the 
moral.  She  was  a  wise  little  maid,  and  reforms 
go  on  leaden  feet;  but  I  remember  no  trouble 
thereafter,  and  so  am  fain  to  believe  that  the 
milk  did  not  turn  sour,  no  matter  about  the 
days  in  the  week. 

May  I  linger  over  another  memory  I  love  to 
cherish?  We  did  not  talk  doctrine  to  the  chil- 
dren in  the  home  week-day  or  Sunday,  and  it 
may  be  some  of  you  will  say,  More's  the  pity. 
But  of  this  I  am  not  sure,  and  hereby  hangs 
my  tale.  Our  eldest  daughter,  a  thoughtful 
lassie,  went  one  Sunday  evening  to  hear  Dr. 
David  Swing,  the  pastor,  then,  of  the  Presby- 
terian church  on  the  North  Side,  who  was  after- 
ward tried  for  heresy  by  a  council  in  which  Dr. 
[  192  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Patton,  the  ex-president  of  Princeton,  was  the 
leader. 

Dr.  Swing's  sermon  was  on  predestination, 
and  a  very,  able  sermon,  no  doubt ;  but  my  daugh- 
ter was  in  a  maze  about  the  sermon,  and  said 
to  me  next  day,  as  we  sat  at  the  table,  after 
some  account  of  the  discourse,  "  Does  predesti- 
nation mean,  father,  that  you  must  go  where 
God  sends  you,  to  heaven  or  to  hell?  "  But  I 
think  she  did  not  use  just  these  words.  Well, 
I  was  preparing,  no  doubt,  to  answer  the  lassie 
when  her  younger  sister,  who  brought  me  to 
book  about  the  Saturday  trouble,  said :  "  That 
is  not  true,  sister.  It  is  not  predestination,  it 
is  pedestrianation.  You  can  go  which  way  you 
will," —  and  took  for  her  proof  the  man  whose 
name  I  forget,  a  famous  pedestrian  who  had 
walked  from  Portland  in  Maine  to  Chicago  of 
his  own  free  will.  So  I  did  not  treat  them  to 
my  discourse  or  cite  Dr.  Johnson's  brusque 
dogma, — "  Sir,  we  know  we  are  free,  and  there's 
an  end  on't." 

The  children  were  left  in  good  care,  and  we 
made  good  time,  as  the  time  was  thirty-four 
years  ago  on  the  steamer  to  Liverpool ;  and  from 
Liverpool  we  made  a  bee-line  for  Leeds,  for  a 
brief  visit  to  the  dear  old  mother,  who  was  then 
[  193  ] 


in  her  seventy-fifth  year,  and  to  the  kith  and 
kin  before  we  went  up  to  London.  (You  go  up 
to  London  from  all  over  England,  never  down.) 
And,  when  we  came  home  to  mother,  as  we  sat 
about  the  table,  she  said,  "  Children,  did  you 
know  it  was  twenty-one  years  ago  this  morning 
since  you  started  on  your  way  to  America,  the 
day  after  your  wedding?  "  We  had  not  re- 
membered, but  mother  had  kept  true  time:  our 
wedding  journey  had  taken  in  twenty-one  years. 


[  194 


XXV 

The  chapel  where  the  opening  services  were 
held  for  the  May  meeting  of  our  brotherhood 
in  London  stood  in  Essex  Street  near  the  Strand, 
the  nearest  neighbor  to  Norfolk  Street  down 
which  I  am  apt  to  daunder  when  I  am  in  London 
trying  to  verify  "  Mrs.  Lirriper's  Lodgings." 
The  Essex  Street  Chapel  was  the  first  in  the  city 
to  bear  our  name  Unitarian,  which  was  also 
then  our  brand,  and  was  built  for  the  ministry 
of  Theophilus  Lindsey,  a  true  given  name;  for 
my  manual  says  it  means  "  a  friend  of  God." 
And,  as  I  am  still  under  the  spell  of  talking  to 
familiar  friends  rather  than  to  "  all  outdoors," 
as  I  was  last  winter,  I  would  fain  put  off 
sermon  time  to  tell  you  something  about  the 
good  Theophilus,  and  how  it  came  to  pass  that 
they  built  the  chapel  for  him  in  the  city  of 
London. 

He  was  the  vicar  of  Cattarick  in  the  north 

of  England,  a  wild  and  large  parish  with  a 

small  stipend,  for  which  he  had  resigned  some 

rich  incumbencies  in  the  south  where  he  could 

[  195  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


live  at  ease,  with  a  bishop's  mitre  and  apron 
dangling  in  the  near  distance. 

But  a  man  was  wanted  in  the  great,  rambling 
parish,  who,  like  Bernard  Gilpin,  would  put  his 
whole  soul  into  the  work  of  winning  the  people 
from  a  sort  of  semi-paganism  to  God,  and,  as 
the  event  proved,  he  was  the  man. 

He  went  to  work  with  his  wife,  who  was  the 
true  helpmeet  for  her  husband,  to  do  the  work 
God  had  given  him  to  do, —  fed  the  hungry  and 
clothed  the  naked,  started  schools  where  they 
were  needed  far  and  wide  in  the  parish,  and 
helped  to  maintain  them  out  of  their  small  in- 
come. He  was  also  a  sort  of  self-appointed 
doctor,  carrying  such  medicines  as  he  could 
safely  prescribe  in  the  saddle  bags  with  his 
Bible  and  prayer-book,  because  he  could  not  be 
content  with  the  cure  of  souls  alone,  but  must 
do  what  he  could  for  the  cure  of  bodies  also, 
and  so  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ. 

But,  in  reading  his  New  Testament  one  day, 
those  words  of  Paul  suddenly  arrested  him, 
"  There  is  but  one  God  the  Father,"  and,  as 
he  tells  us,  sank  into  his  heart,  so  that  he  must 
needs  ponder  them  and  strive  to  find  the  truth, 
for  his  soul's  sake,  of  the  Trinity  or  the  Unity 
of  God.  He  was  a  man  of  excellent  learning 
[  196] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  of  absolute  sincerity  of  purpose,  who  must 
play  no  tricks  with  his  conscience,  but  must 
search  the  Scriptures  painfully  to  find  whether 
this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  the  truth  taught 
in  his  Bible  or  was  only  a  dogma  of  his  Church. 
And  in  his  trouble  he  made  a  clean  breast  of  it 
to  a  friend  in  orders,  eminent  in  the  Church,  to 
find  they  were  entirely  of  one  mind  about  the 
dogma ;  but  his  friend  gave  no  sign  of  distress 
when  he  read  the  formulas  of  the  Trinity  on  a 
Sunday  from  the  prayer-book.  This  was 
another  trouble.  And  then  he  says :  "  It  seemed 
to  me  at  last  to  be  a  real  duplicity  that,  while 
I  was  praying  in  my  heart  to  the  one  God  our 
Father,  my  people  were  led  by  my  language 
to  pray  to  three  persons.  And,  as  one  great 
design  of  Christ's  teaching  and  mission  was 
the  worship  of  the  Father,  as  he  himself  tells 
us,  I  could  not  think  it  was  right  to  do  what 
I  was  doing  for  the  simple-hearted  people  who 
worshipped  God  with  me." 

Then  in  the  midst  of  the  trouble  and  perplex- 
ity he  had  a  severe  fit  of  sickness  that  brought 
him  face  to  face,  he  says,  with  death.  And,  as 
he  began  to  recover,  a  book  fell  into  his  hands 
which  was  written  by  a  man  who  had  given 
up  his  living,  as  he  himself  had  thought  he  must 
[  197  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


do, —  a  book  in  which  he  read  these  words, — 
"  When  thou  canst  no  longer  continue  in  thy 
work  without  dishonor  to  God,  discredit  to  thy 
religion,  the  loss  of  thine  own  integrity,  the 
wounding  of  thy  conscience,  the  spoiling  of  thy 
peace,  and  the  risking  of  thy  soul,  then  thou 
must  believe  that  God  will  turn  the  laying 
aside  of  thy  work  to  the  advancement  of  his 
gospel."  These  words  also  went  to  his  heart, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  resign  the  living 
and  go  forth  with  the  good  wife  into  the  world, 
not  knowing  as  yet  where  they  should  go  or 
what  he  should  do. 

But,  before  he  left  his  people,  he  must  meet 
them  face  to  face  and  tell  them  why  he  could 
not  stay.  There  were  chapels  of  ease  in  the 
great  parish  for  those  who  lived  too  far  away 
to  attend  the  mother  Church,  which  dates  in 
some  rude  fashion  from  about  627  A.  D.,  when 
Paulinus,  the  first  missionary  from  Rome  to 
the  northern  tribes,  "  baptized  his  converts  in 
the  river  Swale  which  runs  by  the  village  of 
Catarac,"  as  Beda  tells  us.  He  spoke  to  them 
as  a  father  to  his  children,  bidding  them  fare- 
well; and  there  was  sore  weeping  when  they 
were  aware  they  should  see  his  face  no  more. 
They  had  no  trouble  about  the  doctrine  or 
[  198] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  or  the  Unity.  This 
was  as  strange  as  if  a  Hindu  should  talk  to 
them  about  the  mysteries  of  the  Rig  Vedas. 
But  there  was  one  book  they  could  read,  and 
this  was  the  good  parson's  life  through  the  ten 
years  of  his  ministry  among  them.  This  was 
as  good  as  fine  wheat  or  freshly  kilned  oatmeal. 
So  their  souls  clave  unto  him,  and  they  pleaded 
with  him  to  stay.  I  can  hear  them  across  the 
chasm  of  the  many  years,  pleading  with  him 
in  the  dear  old  dialect  and  crying :  "  Naay,  sir, 
ye  munnut  leaave  us.  Ye  mun  steeay  an*  take 
care  on  us.  We  cannut  let  ye  gan  aweeay. 
Whaa,  sir,  if  ye  be  a  Unitarian,  as  ye  saay,  so 
be  we.  We  will  be  juust  what  ye  tell  us. 
Steeay,  sir,  that's  all  we  want."  This  was  the 
plea  they  made,  and,  as  I  read  the  record  their 
words  are  still  wet  to  me  with  the  tears;  but 
he  could  not  stay.  All  the  paths  his  feet  had 
worn  as  he  went  about  doing  good  were  closed 
to  him  now.  Only  one  was  open  that  led  into 
the  wilderness.  There  was  about  two  hundred 
dollars  in  our  tenor  when  he  had  sold  his  library, 
and  it  was  borne  in  on  him  that  he  must  go  to 
London.  So  he  went  forth,  his  good  wife  hold- 
ing his  hand,  not  knowing  what  would  befall 
him  there.  The  old  magazines  of  the  period 

[  199  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


that  report  the  change  speak  of  him  with  pure 
regard,  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  especially 
(I  find  no  religious  magazines  in  that  time). 
And  his  bishop,  in  parting  with  him,  said,  "  I 
have  lost  the  best  man  I  had  in  my  whole  dio- 
cese." 

I  said  just  now  there  was  no  church  in  Lon- 
don then  that  bore  our  name  or  brand,  though 
our  faith  in  the  unity  of  God,  the  great  central 
truth  we  hold  and  maintain,  was  winning  its  way 
there  as  it  was  in  Boston  in  our  Puritan 
churches  and  theirs,  in  the  Presbyterian,  minis- 
ters of  the  mind  of  Priestley  and  Lardner,  Rees 
and  Kippis  on  the  other  side  the  water,  and  like 
Chauncey  and  Mayhew  on  this  side ;  but  they  did 
not  take  the  name  and  were  not  what  we  call 
"  come-outers,"  while  my  good  Theophilus,  who 
had  come  out  alone  because  alone  he  had  found 
the  truth  in  his  Bible,  found  he  must  accept 
the  brand ;  and  if  there  was  but  one  man  to  do 
this,  he  would  be  the  man.  He  had  bought  his 
freedom  with  a  great  price,  and  it  was  dear  to 
him  as  his  life  —  his  soul's  life  —  to  be  just 
what  he  was, —  a  confessor  of  the  grand  primal 
truth,  there  is  but  one  God  the  Father.  And 
he  could  give  up  his  living  and  what  we  may 
call  his  "  caste,"  but  for  his  soul's  sake  he  must 
[  200  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


be  the  man  he  was  called  to  be, —  an  apostle 
separated  unto  the  gospel  of  God. 

He  hired  a  hall  and  began  to  hold  services 
there.  The  people  came  to  hear  him  in  such 
numbers  that  the  place  was  soon  too  strait  for 
them,  so  that  they  said,  "  We  must  build  a 
chapel."  And,  as  many  persons  of  wealth  and 
distinction  heard  him  gladly,  this  was  easily 
done,  while  it  is  good  to  remember  that  our 
Benjamin  Franklin  helped  to  build  the  chapel, 
attended  the  services,  and  subscribed  to  the  min- 
ister's stipend  while  he  lived  in  London.  This 
was  the  place,  I  said,  where  the  services  were 
held  that  morning,  in  May,  1871.  I  still  re- 
member the  pulpit  we  have  branded  as  "  a  tub," 
with  the  sounding-board  over  your  head.  I  re- 
member, also,  I  felt  a  little  crowded  in  the  tub, 
and  imagined  Master  Lindsey  must  have  been  a 
slim  man,  such  an  one,  it  may  be,  as  Richard 
Baxter,  the  eminent  Puritan  divine,  whose  pul- 
pit stands  now  on  the  floor  of  the  vestry  in  our 
church  at  Kidderminster,  into  which  you  passed 
by  a  door ;  but,  when  I  would  have  fain  gone  in, 
so  that  I  might  stand  where  he  had  stood,  I 
could  not  get  through,  and  had  to  climb  over. 
And  this,  mind  you,  was  not  the  other  day:  it 
was  thirty  years  ago. 

[  201  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


The  chapel  was  full  that  morning  to  running 
over.  I  think  I  was  the  first  man  from  the 
United  States  who  had  been  invited  to  preach 
the  sermon  at  the  annual  meeting,  but  of  this  I 
am  not  sure.  And  I  was  not  from  Boston ;  for 
in  that  case  I  should  have  borne  the  chrism  on 
my  forehead.  I  had  come  from  Chicago,  a 
strange  city  in  those  days  to  Englishmen,  but 
destined  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  to  be  lifted 
for  a  spectacle  to  the  world  in  her  monstrous  con- 
flagration. She  was  branded  then  as  "  a  mud 
hole,"  and  was  very  far  indeed  from  the  emi- 
nence on  which  she  stands  to-day, —  the  emi- 
nence that  won  the  admiration  of  a  gentleman 
from  England,  who  came  to  the  city  not  long 
ago  to  "  mark  well  her  bulwarks  and  consider 
her  palaces,"  and  said,  "  She  beats  her  own 
brag."  But  I  notice  when  I  go  there  that  she 
has  grown  so  great  she  has  ceased  to  brag. 

But  now  I  must  tell  you  about  the  services  in 
the  old  mother  chapel.  When  the  good  Quaker 
had  a  passage  at  arms  with  one  he  called  a 
hireling  minister,  touching  the  high  worth  of 
their  usage  over  ours,  he  said,  "  Thee  preaches 
because  thee  has  to  say  something,  but  we  preach 
because  we  have  something  to  say."  I  am  not 
sure  that  this  is  always  true  of  their  preaching, 
[  202  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  am  quite  sure  the  converse  is  not  always 
true  of  ours,  while  I  think  both  came  together 
for  me  that  morning  to  meet  and  tie.  I  had  to 
say  something,  and  had  something  to  say,  while, 
if  you  ask,  Where  is  boasting,  then  I  would 
answer,  It  is  excluded  by  the  law  of  grace.  I 
have  told  you  of  times  in  other  memories,  when 
I  had  not  to  lift,  but  was  lifted,  when  the  light 
shone  clear  for  me,  and  it  was  as  the  budding 
forth  of  wings.  I  also  was  in  the  spirit  on  the 
Lord's  day.  A  dear  friend  told  me  many  years 
ago  how  he  met  Morse  in  a  company,  and  said 
to  him,  "  Are  you  not  proud,  sir,  of  what  you 
have  done?  "  And  he  answered,  "  No,  I  am  not 
proud,  because  I  always  feel  these  things  were 
not  done  by  me,  but  through  me."  So  I  have 
felt,  and  still  feel,  when  I  remember  that  morn- 
ing. I  was  in  the  spirit,  mid-week  as  it  was. 
The  sermon  is  still  in  the  barrel,  and,  as  the 
Scotch  say,  "  is  no  that  bad  "  when  I  take  it 
out  now  and  then;  but  the  fervent  fire  is  no 
more  in  the  words,  as  it  was  that  morning,  and 
I  have  to  remember  what  Mr.  Emerson  said  to 
me  after  a  service  in  Chicago,  "  When  you  are 
old,  you  will  wonder  how  these  things  were 
done."  The  good  poet  sings, — 

[203  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"The  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me." 

But  the  tender  grace  of  that  day  comes  back  to 
me  always  as  I  sit  in  the  silence  and  touch  the 
memories, —  this,  and  how  they  spoke  to  me 
after  the  service  and  clasped  my  hand.  They 
are  by  no  means  so  clever  in  this  wise  in  Eng- 
land as  we  are  on  this  side  the  water ;  they  need 
to  be  thawed  out,  and  I  may  say,  in  passing, 
especially  in  Scotland.  But  there  was  no  ice 
that  morning  or  down  to  zero,  in  the  good  old 
chapel,  and  I  felt  I  was  at  home  in  London,  and 
in  England  also ;  for  from  that  day,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  all  the  churches  of  our  faith  and  order 
gave  me  the  freedom  of  their  pulpit.  For,  in 
the  five  visits  I  have  made  since  then  to  the  old 
motherland,  I  cannot  remember  one  Sunday 
when  I  was  not  preaching  somewhere,  while  on 
my  last  visit,  almost  seven  years  ago,  the  council 
invited  me  again  to  take  the  annual  sermon ; 
but  I  was  then  on  the  Continent,  and  could  not 
come  to  time,  and  felt  I  must  decline  the  invita- 
tion. 

In  another  memory  I  may  tell  you  about  our 
rambles  about  London  and  otherwheres,  but,  be- 
fore this  closes,  may  say  I  preached  that  summer 


SOME  MEMORIES 


for  Dr.  Martineau's  congregation  in  the  chapel, 
of  which  he  was  then  the  minister.  In  Manches- 
ter, also,  at  the  Cross  Street  Chapel,  for  Mr. 
Gaskell,'the  husband  of  Mrs.  Gaskell,  the  author, 
you  will  know,  of  "  Ruth "  and  "  Mary  Bar- 
ton "  and  "  Cranf  ord,"  to  mention  only  her  best 
works  to  my  own  thinking.  He  was  a  lovely 
man,  with  a  touch  of  latent  humor.  I  was  chat- 
ting with  him  one  day  in  the  vestry  of  the 
chapel,  and  speaking  of  a  former  minister  who 
had  won  my  regard.  I  said,  "  Do  you  know, 
sir,  where  he  is  buried?  "  And  he  answered, 
"  Yes,  you  are  sitting  right  on  his  grave."  I 
moved  my  chair.  And  for  Charles  Beard  in 
Liverpool,  the  son  of  the  famous  old  doctor  in 
divinity,  preacher  and  teacher.  Mr.  Beard  had 
written  me  to  preach  for  him,  and  I  had  told 
him  when  we  should  be  due  in  Liverpool. 
We  went,  on  landing,  to  the  Adelphi;  and,  as  I 
was  inscribing  our  names,  he  stood  near,  and 
holding  out  his  hand,  as  I  turned,  he  said,  "  I 
am  Mr.  Beard."  His  hair  was  white.  I  took 
him  for  the  old  doctor,  and  said  presently,  "  How 
is  your  son,  sir?  "  And  he  answered  promptly, 
"  I  am  my  son."  And  so  we  clasped  hands. 


[  205  J 


XXVI 

In  my  last  memory  I  told  you  the  story  of 
our  good  Theophilus,  "  a  friend  of  God,"  and 
the  services  in  the  old  chapel,  when  I  stood  in 
the  same  pulpit,  both  good  memories  still,  with 
no  rust  on  them  or  tarnish  from  the  touch  of 
time. 

And  now  I  want  to  tell  you  about  our  stay 
in  London  through  some  three  weeks  among 
the  friends  of  our  faith  and  fellowship,  who 
gave  me  and  mine  the  warm  welcome  on  that 
memorable  morning.  We  were  the  guests 
mainly  of  Rev.  Robert  Spears  and  Mrs.  Spears, 
his  good  and  true  helpmeet.  He  was  then  the 
secretary  of  the  Association,  and  also  the  min- 
ister of  the  Stamford  Street  Chapel.  Brother 
Hale  had  given  me  a  letter  to  him  on  my  visit 
to  England  six  years  before  this,  when  he  gave 
me  as  warm  welcome  as  my  heart  could  desire, 
and  asked  me  also  to  preach  for  him  on  the 
Sunday  evening,  and  there  to  my  delight  I 
found  a  congregation  very  much  like  my  own 
in  Chicago.  They  received  the  Word  gladly, 
[  206  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  clasped  my  hand  so  heartily  after  the  serv- 
ice that,  as  an  old  friend  used  to  say,  it  seemed 
like  the  hand  of  Providence,  as  indeed  I  think 
it  was  to  me.  And  Robert  I  soon  found  was 
a  man  to  tie  to  and  to  love,  sincere  as  the  day 
and  wholesome  as  brown  bread.  We  also  found 
presently  that  our  lives  in  the  earlier  years  had 
lain  on  parallel  lines;  for  he  also  had  worked 
at  the  anvil  and  spent  all  his  spare  time  in  read- 
ing and  study,  had  joined  an  offshoot  of  my 
mother  Methodist  Church,  and  became  a  local 
preacher,  but  found  he  was  not  in  sympathy 
with  the  doctrines  or  dogmas  of  the  church,  so 
he  gave  up  his  fellowship  and  found  his  true 
home  in  the  Unitarian  fold,  and  in  our  faith  the 
bread  of  life  to  his  soul.  You  will  find  the 
story  of  his  life  in  a  small  volume  you  can  pur- 
chase at  the  rooms  of  our  Association  in  Bos- 
ton, for  which  I  wrote  a  brief  sketch.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  most  successful  minister  of  our 
faith  and  order,  to  my  own  mind,  in  London, 
from  his  coming  there  to  his  death.  He  also, 
with  his  good  wife,  kept  what  we  were  used  to 
call  over  here  a  minister's  tavern;  for  they 
were  given  to  hospitality,  as  Dr.  Ripley  was  in 
Concord,  where  Mr.  Emerson  says  every  minis- 
ter's horse  from  the  eastward  turned  in  by  in- 
[  207  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


stinct  at  the  gateway  of  the  "  Old  Manse " 
Hawthorne  has  lifted  into  the  light  for  a  time 
we  cannot  measure.  So  Robert  and  the  good 
hostess  welcomed  the  strangers  within  their 
gates,  who  came  to  London  with  a  message  or  a 
burden,  seeking  the  light,  or  bringing  it,  as 
they  thought,  to  our  people  from  Hindustan  or 
Iceland.  This  was  no  matter:  they  were 
strangers,  and  they  took  them  in. 

Other  friends  I  must  mention,  who  made  our 
stay  in  the  great  city  most  pleasant  and  mem- 
orable. I  noticed,  as  I  was  speaking  that  morn- 
ing, a  man  sitting  near  the  pulpit  with  a  grand 
head  and  snow-white  hair,  looking  up  intently 
through  a  pair  of  quite  formidable  spectacles 
he  would  throw  back  on  his  forehead  with  a 
quick  motion  when  something  was  said  it  may 
be  he  liked  or  disliked,  I  had  no  time  or  will  to 
guess.  But,  when  I  came  down  literally  from 
on  high,  he  came  forward,  clasped  my  hand 
warmly,  and  mentioned  his  name,  John  Bow- 
ring.  It  was  the  good  knight  Sir  John,  and  I 
bowed  my  head  in  reverence,  not  to  the  knight, 
but  to  the  man ;  for  he  was  known  to  me  through 
my  reading  and  by  common  fame. 

He  was  then  in  his  seventy-ninth  year,  but 
was  hale  and  hearty  to  all  seeming  as  a  man  of 
[  208  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


fifty;  and,  as  I  found,  when  he  would  speak  in 
our  meetings  and  to  myself  in  his  home,  he  was 
one  with  us  and  one  of  us,  heart  and  soul.  He 
had  no  misgivings  touching  our  faith  or  our 
future.  We  were  here  to  stay  and  to  win  the 
world  to  the  gospel  of  the  One  God  our  Father, 
and  there  were  moments  in  our  communion  when 
his  voice  would  take  a  deep  tone  and  musical, 
as  if  he  were  chanting  his  own  grand  hymn, — 

"  Watchman,  tell  us  of  the  night, 
What  its  signs  of  promise  are  ?  " 

And  now  I  love  to  think  it  was  almost  worth 
the  journey  over  sea  to  spend  those  hours  with 
the  good  knight;  and,  when  he  asked  me,  as  we 
sat  at  the  table,  whether  I  had  seen  any  of  the 
eminent  people  since  we  came  to  London,  I  an- 
swered, "  No  one  greater  than  a  knight,"  not 
remembering  at  the  moment  he  was  one. 

Sir  John  Robinson  was  in  the  old  chapel  also 
that  morning,  then  plain  John.  He  was  then 
the  chief  on  the  Daily  News.  He  also  clasped 
my  hand  warmly  and  wrote  something  about  the 
services  to  the  Chicago  Evening  Journal,  which 
greatly  pleased  my  people  and  —  let  me  be  hon- 
est —  pleased  me  when  we  came  home.  He 
would  have  me  go  with  him  on  a  day  to  the 
[  209  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Reform  Club  to  break  bread;  and  in  the  great 
common  room  I  sat  in  Thackeray's  favorite 
chair,  that  also  is  a  pleasant  memory.  Our 
friendship  only  ended  with  his  life.  We  were 
sure  to  meet  when  I  came  to  London  in  the  after 
years  and  sit  together  at  the  table  in  the  club; 
and  I  loved  to  meet  him,  he  was  so  heartily  hu- 
man. And  I  think  he  was  the  best  story-teller 
I  ever  met  in  England,  drawn  from  the  mem- 
ories of  his  busy  life  as  they  usually  were.  Also 
like  the  whole  brood  of  us,  he  would  take  pos- 
session of  any  story  worth  its  salt  and  hold  it  in 
fee  simple.  I  told  him  such  an  one,  when  we 
met  as  usual  in  1892,  of  a  man  in  the  West 
touched  with  a  quaint  and  original  humor  that 
pleased  him  greatly,  as  I  had  it  fresh  from  the 
mint ;  and,  not  long  after  we  came  home,  there  it 
was  in  Punch  in  a  very  thin  disguise,  but  trans- 
ferred to  England  with  a  capital  illustration. 
I  went  over  again  in  1898.  He  came  to  see 
me,  and  we  went  to  the  club,  where  slipping  into 
the  old  groove,  he  had  told  some  good  stories 
of  the  men  he  had  met,  and  I  had  drawn  also  on 
my  memory,  I  said,  "  Sir  John,  did  you  give 
that  story  I  told  you  about  the  old  humorist 
in  Illinois  to  Punch?  "  He  did  not  blush:  we 
never  do  in  such  a  case.  He  said  simply,  "  It 
[  210  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


was  too  good  to  keep,  you  know,"  and  then 
added  with  a  touch  of  alarm,  "  Do  not  follow 
my  example  and  print  any  of  those  I  have  told 
you,  I  am  making  a  book  of  recollections." 
The  book  I  notice  is  printed,  but  he  did  not  live 
to  see  it  in  print,  and  I  shall  see  his  face  no 
more;  but  I  love  to  hold  the  memory  of  our 
friendship  through  more  than  thirty  years. 

Another,  and  the  last,  of  our  sojourn  may 
close  this  monologue  for  the  time,  of  the  friend- 
ship which  dates  from  that  year  and  still  stays 
warm  and  sweet  with  those  who  are  left,  of  Sir 
James  Clarke  Lawrence  and  his  brothers  which 
must  have  budded  forth  that  morning.  Sir 
James  was  at  the  head  then,  and  if  my  memory 
is  good,  in  the  firm  of  Lawrence  Brothers,  Con- 
tractors and  Builders. 

Their  father  had  come  up  to  London  many 
years  before,  a  workingman,  with  just  his  able 
head,  his  clever  hands,  and  the  good  wife  for 
his  whole  fortune  —  and  what  better  could  you 
wish  for  — had  established  his  business  on 
firm  foundations,  and  prospered  amain  by  hon- 
est work  well  done;  had  also  given  such  pledges 
of  his  worth  as  a  man  and  a  citizen  that  he  was 
elected  lord  mayor  of  his  city  I  think  for  two 
terms,  but  of  this  I  am  not  quite  sure ;  and  had 
[211  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


also  been  knighted.  The  sons  had  succeeded 
him  in  the  business  at  his  death,  and  Sir  James 
had  been  elected  lord  major  in  the  year  be- 
fore this  we  have  in  our  minds,  and  had  been 
knighted  in  the  opening  of  the  great  Holborn 
Viaduct. 

He  was  a  busy  man,  but  offered  heartily  to 
go  with  me  about  London  —  his  London  —  and 
show  me  what  I  might  not  easily  see  otherwise. 
This  was  just  what  I  would  love  to  do.  I  had 
wanted  to  see  the  guild  halls  of  the  ancient 
guilds  about  which  I  had  read  so  much,  and 
his  name  was  the  pass-key  to  open  their  curi- 
ous and  capital  treasures.  Then  he  took  me 
to  the  great  guild  hall  of  the  city  he  knew  like 
a  book,  having  been  lord  mayor,  and  among 
many  things  asked  the  guardian  to  open  the 
plate  chest  and  show  me  the  plate,  all  gold,  to 
lift  out  the  great  golden  flagon  he  put  into  my 
hand,  and  asked  me  to  heft  it,  and  did  not  ask 
me  if  we  had  anything  like  that  in  the  States. 
We  went  to  Newgate,  that  place  of  evil  fame,  a 
hideous  old  structure  now  pulled  down,  but 
black  then  with  smoke  and  to  me  with  its  rec- 
ords of  crime,  to  the  Holloway  Prison  also,  where 
there  was  a  treadmill.  There  was  one  in  my 
boyhood  at  Wakefield  in  Yorkshire,  the  buga- 


SOME  MEMORIES 


boo  of  boys  when  they  would  say  of  some  reck- 
less fellow  he  will  land  on  the  treadmill;  and  I 
wanted  to  verify  my  grim  memory.  So  I  said 
to  my  friend,  "  I  should  like  to  get  on  that 
thing,  sir,  and  see  how  it  works."  He  smiled, 
and  the  man  who  was  ordered  off  seemed  much 
pleased  to  have  me  take  his  place ;  but  I  wonder 
if  it  was  more  than  a  fragment  of  a  minute  be- 
fore I  cried,  "  Let  me  down ! "  It  seemed  as  if 
the  very  world  was  giving  way  under  my  feet. 
I  can  dimly  recall  that  moment  still. 

But  better  memories  wait.  Sir  James  said  he 
would  like  me  on  a  day  to  attend  the  great 
service  held  once  a  year  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral 
for  the  children  of  the  great  London  charities. 
I  was  glad  to  go,  and  have  been  glad  for  the 
memory  all  these  years.  We  sat,  I  remem- 
ber, in  the  wardens'  pew  right  under  the  dome. 
The  children  —  ten  thousand  they  told  me  — 
sat  in  the  vast  gallery  to  the  left,  and  the  con- 
gregation, also  vast,  in  the  body  of  the  cathe- 
dral, I  forget  its  especial  name.  The  services 
were  intoned  in  beautiful  harmony,  lead  by  one 
wonderful  voice.  I  would  love  to  hear  that  voice 
again.  There  were  other  things  done  by  the 
choir  in  the  proper  order,  and,  when  the  right 
moment  came,  all  the  children  rose  and  sang  a 
[  213  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


hymn  to  such  a  heart-invading   purpose  that 
the  tears  ran  down  my  face. 

Then  one  evening  I  must  go  with  my  good 
friend  to  the  feast  of  the  Carpenters'  Guild  in 
their  splendid  hall  —  my  last  memory  of  our 
sojourn  in  London  that  spring.  I  had  seen  the 
hall  before  in  his  company,  but  here  were  the 
members  of  the  guild  on  one  of  their  holidays, 
cheerful  and  ready  for  the  good  cheer.  I  was 
introduced  to  the  oldest  earl  in  England  by 
strict  descent,  who  gave  me  two  fingers  to  shake, 
and  was  told  that  they  came  over  with  the  Con- 
queror, but  have  still  to  find  out  what  they  had 
done  besides.  It  was  one  of  those  dinners  I 
suppose  you  can  only  partake  of  in  the  old  Lon- 
don guilds  — "  a  feast  of  fat  things,  .  .  .  and 
wines  on  the  lees  well  refined";  but  all  things 
were  done  decently  and  in  order.  There  was  a 
bishop  on  the  dais  to  ask  the  blessing,  and  a 
toastmaster  who  was  not  a  guest,  but  came  in 
at  intervals  to  propose  the  toast  and  then  sing 
a  song,  as  the  custom  had  been  observed  for 
hundreds  of  years, —  a  person  worthy  the  pen 
of  Dickens.  And,  when  the  feast  was  over  and 
done  —  but,  as  I  guessed,  not  done  with  by 
some  who  sat  near  us  —  there  were  speeches  to 
the  honor  and  glory  of  the  fine  old  craft. 
[  214  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


The  first  speech  was  made  by  the  bishop,  a 
fine  old  dignitary  of  the  first  water;  for  there 
are  degrees  in  bishops,  as  I  learned  in  Canter- 
bury when  I  was  the  guest  of  Canon  Freeman- 
tie.  I  sat  next  a  bishop,  and  said  to  him  —  for 
we  were  in  a  merry  mood  —  I  felt  a  little  proud, 
for  I  had  never  dined  with  one  of  his  rank  be- 
fore. "  Do  not  be  proud,"  he  said,  laughing  in 
his  sleeve.  "  They  have  made  a  lot  suffragan 
bishops,  and  I  am  one.  But  I  think  we  are  not 
held  in  any  great  esteem;  for  I  went  not  long 
ago  to  a  place  in  my  charge  to  preach  and  con- 
firm, where  I  was  not  known,  and  overheard  one 
old  farmer  say  to  another,  '  T'  bishop's  coming 
to  preach,  did  ye  know  ? '  '  Ay,  I  know,'  the 
other  answered,  '  but  he's  only  o'  of  them  suf- 
ferin'  bishops.'  Do  not  be  proud."  So  the 
bishop,  I  said,  made  the  first  speech,  and  he  was 
followed  by  a  fine  old  orthodox  divine,  the  min- 
ister of  an  eminent  church  in  Manchester.  He 
was  to  be  the  last  speaker  that  evening;  but, 
when  he  sat  down,  the  president  said,  "  We  have 
a  gentleman  with  us,  a  minister  from  America; 
and  we  shall  be  pleased  if  he  will  say  a  word  to 
us  before  we  go  home."  Sir  James  whispered, 
"  You  are  the  man."  And  I  was  of  course  quite 
unprepared  to  say  even  the  word.  But  the 


SOME  MEMORIES 


word  came  to  me  in  a  flash,  it  was  given  me  what 
I  should  say.  So,  after  due  praise  of  the  good 
addresses  to  which  we  had  listened  —  we  always 
do  that,  you  know,  in  any  case,  but  here  I  could 
speak  with  a  good  will  —  I  said :  "  There  is  one 
word  more  can  be  said  of  your  honorable  craft, 
which  to  my  own  mind  casts  the  fairest  radiance 
on  you  and  yours.  Jesus  Christ  was  a  carpen- 
ter, and  wrought  at  the  bench,  as  nearly  as  we 
can  make  out,  until  he  was  about  thirty  years 
of  age,  before  he  went  forth  on  his  holy  mis- 
sion." I  cannot  remember  what  I  said  besides 
in  the  few  moments,  but  had  reason  to  believe  it 
was  a  welcome  word ;  for  the  good  orthodox  di- 
vine clasped  my  hand  as  we  left  the  hall,  saying, 
"  Why  should  I  have  forgotten  to  say  that 
word  myself?  "  I  thought  I  knew  the  reason, 
but  did  not  tell  him. 


[  216  1 


XXVII 

Our  sojourn  in  England  that  summer  and  a 
journey  on  the  continent  from  Antwerp  through 
the  Rhineland  to  Switzerland  and  thence  by 
Geneva  to  Paris  are  memories  I  may  touch  be- 
fore I  have  done  if  the  play  seems  to  be  worth 
the  candle,  but  will  only  say  now  that  we  came 
home  in  September  to  find  a  warm  welcome  all 
along  the  line. 

We  were  purely  well,  the  father,  the  mother, 
and  the  little  maid,  and  no  member  of  the  church 
had  been  taken  from  our  midst.  They  were  all 
there  to  welcome  us  in  the  church,  the  Sunday- 
school,  and  at  the  week-night  reception. 

We  came  home  on  the  Batavia,  and  they  had 
a  model  of  her  made,  studded  all  over  with  tube- 
roses and  set  on  the  communion  table.  Their 
fragrance  still  lingers  in  my  memory  as  I  write 
these  words,  and  in  my  heart.  This  would  be 
the  third  week  in  September  when  we  held  the 
first  services  in  our  church,  and  sang,  as  I  still 
remember,  the  hymn  which  was  written  for  the 
dedication  of  our  church: — 
[  217  ] 


"  Unto  thy  temple,  Lord,  we  come, 

With  thankful  hearts  to  worship  thee; 
And  pray  that  this  may  be  our  home, 
Until  we  touch  eternity." 

This  was  our  psalm  and  prayer,  our  hope  and 
joy;  and  we  wist  not  that  the  day  of  mourning 
and  desolation  was  drawing  near  when  the  words 
of  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophet  would  again  be 
fulfilled. 

"  Saith  God,  I  will  shew  wonders  in  the  heavens 

above, 

And  signs  on  the  earth  beneath, 
Blood  and  fire,  vapor  and  smoke. 
The  sun  shall  be  turned  into  darkness, 
And  the  moon  into  blood." 

When  on  the  third  Sunday  of  our  services 
and  in  the  evening,  as  I  was  telling  the  story 
to  a  great  congregation  of  the  wreck  and  ruin 
we  had  seen  in  Paris,  and  of  what  we  had  been 
told  by  friends  who  had  survived  the  siege  and 
the  great  woe  of  the  Commune,  never  leaving  the 
city  for  a  day,  the  fire  was  kindled  by  a  mere 
accident,  as  the  story  stands,  that  lifted  our 
fair  city  in  the  lurid  flame  for  a  spectacle  to  the 
world.  And  on  the  Monday  night,  when  I  saw 
the  last  home  burn,  far  up  in  the  north,  the  fire 
[  218  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


had  swept  over  a  space  four  miles  in  length  and 
from  a  mile  to  a  mile  and  a  half  in  breadth  be- 
tween the  river  and  the  lake,  leaving  over  ninety- 
eight  thousand  men,  women,  and  children  home- 
less when  the  night  fell,  and  on  a  rough  estimate 
more  than  seventy  thousand  crouching  outside 
the  fire  line  in  the  open  and  in  the  bitter  October 
storm. 

Still  the  fire  did  not  fall  on  us  like  a  bolt  from 
the  blue.  The  summer  had  been  the  dryest 
the  oldest  settlers  could  remember,  and  some  of 
these  had  lived  there  with  the  Indians  when 
Chicago  was  a  trading-post.  The  rainfall  by 
the  record  had  been  only  twenty-eight  and  a 
half  per  cent,  of  the  usual  average,  and  the 
drought  had  covered  the  whole  region  north- 
ward, so  that  very  soon  after  we  came  home  the 
woods  and  dry  bent  were  afire  in  the  lumber 
lands,  from  which  a  heavy  haze  of  smoke,  as  I 
remember,  hung  over  our  city  from  the  far 
away,  and  the  sad  tidings  came  to  us  of  small 
lumber  towns  burning,  the  loss  of  many  lives, 
and  of  many  more  who  were  only  saved  by 
standing  up  to  their  necks  in  the  water.  This 
was  the  situation,  and  many  took  the  alarm, 
fearing  what  might  come  to  pass  in  our  tinder- 
dry  city  in  which  the  houses  were  mostly  built 
[  219  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


of  wood,  especially  on  the  North  and  West 
Sides.  So  the  authorities  and  the  fire  depart- 
ment were  taking  all  the  pains  possible,  I  think, 
to  fight  the  fire  if  it  should  kindle  and  spread, 
while  in  the  week  before  the  great  conflagration 
there  was  a  fire  on  the  West  Side  where  a  large 
area  was  burned;  but  this  was  got  under  after 
a  fierce  struggle,  and  then  we  began  to  hope 
for  the  best,  while  the  worst  was  at  our  doors. 
The  alarm  also  had  spread  that  the  worst 
might  still  be  waiting;  for  Dr.  Eliot,  our  min- 
ister in  St.  Louis,  told  me  he  was  greatly 
alarmed,  and  on  the  Sunday  morning  said  to  his 
people  he  feared  a  great  calamity  was  impend- 
ing over  us,  and  told  them  they  must  all  be 
ready  to  help  us  by  all  means  in  their  power 
when  it  came. 

It  came,  I  said,  on  the  Sunday  evening;  and 
I  well  remember  when  the  church  scaled  the 
glare  of  fire  that  met  us  far  away,  as  it  seemed 
then,  on  the  South  Side,  and  we  were  alarmed. 
But  I  was  tired  with  the  heat  and  the  two  serv- 
ices, and  said  I  must  have  some  sleep.  Mother 
was  tired  also,  but  could  not  —  durst  not  — 
rest.  She  would  watch,  and,  if  there  was  dan- 
ger that  the  fire  would  cross  the  river  and 
spread  north,  she  would  wake  me.  She  aroused 
[  220  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


me  soon  after  midnight.  The  fire  was  burning 
fiercely,  she  said,  and  we  must  be  ready  if  it 
crossed  the  river.  The  wind  was  blowing  hard 
from  the  south-west,  and  the  burning  embers 
were  borne  high  above  us  as  yet  on  its  wings. 
If  you  can  imagine  a  snowstorm  of  burning  em- 
bers —  for  I  can  find  no  fitter  figure  —  there  it 
was  high  in  the  dark  heavens.  We  must  arouse 
the  children  at  once,  she  said,  and  have  them 
dressed.  So  this  was  done,  and  then  we  aroused 
the  neighbors  down  the  avenue,  and  asked  the 
policeman  to  alarm  all  he  could  reach  who  were 
still  sleeping.  He  did  not  think  the  fire  would 
reach  us,  but  went  to  work  with  a  will.  This 
so  far  was  more  mother's  work  than  mine.  I 
thought  the  fire  might  still  be  mastered  before 
it  crossed  the  river.  The  children,  I  remember, 
were  very,  quiet  and  asked  me  to  take  them  over 
the  river  to  see  the  spectacle.  Mother  was  not 
willing,  but  I  took  them  over  the  bridge.  The 
court-house  was  burning  and  the  fire  gathering 
in  volume,  and  I  saw  we  must  make  haste  home, 
for  the  bridge  was  in  peril.  Half  an  hour  or 
so  after  this  the  bridge  was  burned,  the  wind 
had  risen  to  a  hurricane,  and  volumes  of  flame 
began  to  rise  from  the  great  stores  of  alcohol 
and  its  like  in  the  warehouses,  and  go  northward 
[  221  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


on  the  storm.  The  spire  of  the  Catholic  Ca- 
thedral came  down  before  the  fire  came  near.  I 
have  seen  this  questioned;  but  I  saw  it  fall,  as 
I  stood  not  far  away.  Early  in  the  morning 
the  fire  had  crossed  the  river.  John  Wentworth, 
ex-mayor  I  know  not  how  many  times,  and  a 
potency  in  our  city,  came  pounding  up  the 
street  with  a  carpet  bag,  going  north.  We 
were  good  friends,  and  he  said  to  me :  "  The 
fire  will  take  the  whole  North  Side.  Get  your 
family  away.  It  has  burnt  all  I  have  except 
the  papers  in  this  carpet  bag."  And  then  he 
went  his  way,  and  I  saw  him  no  more  for  many 
months.  But  we  could  not  flee  then,  and  made 
up  our  minds  to  save  what  we  could  from  the 
home  if  it  was  burned,  and  take  refuge  in  the 
church ;  for  that  might  still  be  saved.  It  was  a 
forlorn  hope;  but  we  began  at  once  to  move 
what  we  could  take  in  our  arms,  with  the  chil- 
dren to  help  us.  So  down  to  our  little  lad  they 
all  volunteered.  I  remember  still  how  we  hung 
a  picture  we  would  save,  a  landscape,  by  Wil- 
liam Hart.  We  looped  it  over  his  neck,  and 
away  he  went.  But  the  loop  was  long,  the 
picture  hung  before  him  and  bumped  on  his 
small  shins,  whereat  he  wept  a  few  quiet  tears; 
but  he  got  there,  for  he  takes  after  his  mother. 
F  222  1 

|_     <«<v/v      I 


SOME  MEMORIES 


But  the  pathetic  picture  of  his  trotting  along 
is  worth  more  to  me  now  than  the  landscape  by 
Hart.  We  all  worked  like  beavers  to  save 
what  we  could,  and  a  good  woman  came,  say- 
ing :  "  The  fire  will  not  take  our  house,  the  wind 
is  blowing  it  away.  If  you  want  to  save  your 
most  valuable  books,  send  them  to  us."  We 
had  saved  a  few:  our  eldest  daughter  had  car- 
ried them  in  her  arms,  going  back  and  forth,  so 
that  the  bonnie  face  of  my  lassie  was  all  grimy, 
while  the  smoke  had  brought  the  tears  down  her 
face  and  made  cleaner  lines.  And  in  one  of  her 
journeys,  with  her  arms  full  of  books,  as  she 
still  tells  the  story,  a  young  gentleman,  an  ut- 
ter stranger,  said  to  her,  "  Miss  Collyer,  may  I 
wipe  your  face? "  She  answered,  "  If  you 
please,  sir."  So  he  did  this,  with  a  handker- 
chief which  she  thinks  must  have  been  used  for 
many  such  faces  that  morning.  So  she  said, 
"  Thank  you,  sir."  She  had  never  seen  him 
before  and  never  saw  him  again,  the  good  Sa- 
maritan !  Well,  I  found  an  express  to  take  my 
most  precious  books.  I  do  not  remember  what 
I  paid  him,  but  it  was  all  the  money  I  had  about 
me.  The  books  were  taken  in,  and  I  felt  that 
a  load  was  taken  from  my  heart;  but  within  an 
hour  the  fire  leapt  on  the  house,  and  my  books 
[  223  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


were  a  burnt  offering  to  the  monster.  We  kept 
well  at  work,  saving  what  we  could  carry,  until 
the  front  of  the  home  was  on  fire;  but  still  I 
lingered  after  mother  and  children  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  church,  picking  up  trifles  worth 
but  little  except  to  me  and  mine,  and  then  I 
must  clear  out  by  the  rear  door,  but  still  remem- 
ber, as  I  was  passing,  I  saw  the  kettle  standing 
on  the  stove,  as  the  maids  had  left  it  ready  for 
our  breakfast.  The  sight  went  to  my  heart. 
Something  human  seemed  to  touch  the  thing  we 
had  used  so  long.  I  paused  for  a  moment  to 
pat  it  on  the  shoulder,  and  said :  "  I  am  sorry, 
old  friend,  that  I  must  leave  you  there  to  burn. 
You  have  been  a  good  servant  to  me  and  mine; 
and,  quite  unlike  your  master,  you  always  began 
to  sing  before  you  boiled  over."  So  near  is 
humor  of  kin  to  our  pain. 

But  the  fire  still  swept  northward,  and  well 
along  in  the  forenoon  we  saw  the  church  must 
go.  A  house  near  by  on  the  line  of  the  wind  had 
caught,  and  our  house  of  refuge  was  in  instant 
peril.  One  house  in  the  great  waste  of  burning 
was  saved,  the  Ogden  house.  It  stood  in  a  square 
quite  near  the  church,  and  the  good,  gen- 
erous inmates  came  over  to  us,  and  said :  "  We 
have  a  great  cistern  full  of  water.  Come  over 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  take  all  you  will  to  save  the  church.  We 
may  also  be  burned  out,  but  we  don't  care. 
Come  for  the  water  and  welcome."  But,  in  de- 
spite of  all  we  could  do,  the  fire  swept  through 
the  slats  in  the  spire,  and  the  church  began  to 
burn  up  there.  Then,  when  there  was  no  hope, 
we  took  again  what  we  could  carry,  of  the  most 
value,  and  started  on  our  pilgrimage  from  the 
City  of  Destruction,  buried  our  small  store  of 
silver  in  a  celery  patch  not  far  away,  and  heaped 
the  earth  over  it  with  our  hands  and  feet. 
Mother  remembered  that  we  moved  five  times 
that  day,  all  told,  with  what  we  could  carry, 
losing  the  most  before  the  night  fell ;  but,  when 
we  left  the  church,  I  was  blind  and  helpless.  I 
could  not  open  my  eyes  or  my  hands.  So  they 
had  to  lead  me  northward  out  of  the  danger. 
There  was  one  house,  we  were  sure,  away  up 
north,  the  fire  would  not  reach.  The  family 
were  members  of  our  church.  We  would  go 
there,  and  we  went.  If  we  had  been  their  ain 
folk,  we  could  not  have  been  more  welcome  than 
Mrs.  Price  made  us,  and  her  sons.  They  were 
originally  from  Brattleboro.  The  town  takes 
on  a  touch  of  sacredness  to  me  because  of  the 
memory.  I  was  lamed,,  and  they  ministered 
unto  me:  we  were  faint,  and  they  fed  us.  My 
[  225  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


eyes  opened  after  much  bathing,  and  my  hands 
with  the  rest  and  refreshing,  so  that  I  was  my- 
self again  as  they  were,  the  mother  and  the  chil- 
dren. When  I  went  to  look  out,  I  said,  "  The 
fire  will  take  your  house,  dear  friends."  And 
so  it  was,  but  there  was  time  to  bury  many 
things  in  the  garden  in  the  dry  sand  they  re- 
covered without  damage  about  a  week  after. 
Some  members  of  our  church  lived  north  by 
west  in  the  lee  of  a  small  lake  and  were  safe 
from  the  fire.  Mr.  Moulding  said,  "  We  must 
find  our  minister  and  the  family  at  any  cost." 
So  he  yoked  up  his  team  and  came  to  find  us  — 
found  us  I  do  not  quite  remember  where;  but 
there  the  good  fellow  was  with  his  wagon,  ready 
to  take  us  home.  Mother  and  the  children  went 
with  him,  but  I  stayed  behind  to  come  after, 
while  among  us  we  picked  up  fifteen  young  men 
of  the  church,  I  remember,  who  were  quite 
stranded.  They  were  also  taken  to  the  refuge 
in  the  lee  of  the  lake.  There  was  no  room  for 
them  in  the  house,  so  they  must  sleep  in  the 
barn, —  a  palace  to  them  that  night,  but  very 
cold,  as  they  would  tell  for  years  after  in  great 
glee.  They  slept  in  a  row ;  and,  when  the  outer- 
most men  could  bear  the  cold  no  longer,  they 
would  take  to  the  middle  where  the  others  gave 
[  226  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


them  room.  So  they  had  a  good  time.  My 
last  memory  of  the  grim  day  was  to  watch  the 
fire  fiend  burn  the  last  house. 

This  is  the  memory  of  the  destruction  of  our 
home,  our  church,  and  almost  all  the  homes  in 
our  parish.  Another  memory  remains  of  our 
restoration. 


[  227  ] 


XXVIII 

I  must  reap  some  memories  now  of  our  res- 
toration after  the  great  fire,  and  this  is  the 
first. 

When  we  were  alone  in  our  safe  harbor  on 
the  lee  of  the  small  lake,  and  mother  had  seen 
the  children  safe  in  their  beds,  I  quite  broke 
down,  for  the  pity  of  it  and  the  pain.  The 
church  was  burnt,  and  the  home  we  owned,  with 
more  than  90  per  cent  of  the  homes  in  our 
parish,  while  we  feared  also  that  dear  friends 
had  been  caught  as  in  a  trap  when  the  great 
volumes  of  fire  from  the  explosions  in  the  vaults 
on  the  south  side  had  leaped  suddenly  on  them 
and  barred  their  escape  by  the  avenues  north- 
ward. They  might  have  escaped  in  a  boat  or 
a  tug  on  the  lake ;  but  we  feared  the  worst,  and 
I  broke  down. 

But  once  more  in  our  life  together  my  ex- 
tremity was  mother's  opportunity.  Bunyan 
tells  us  that,  when  his  pilgrims  were  in  the  dun- 
geon of  the  Giant  Despair,  Christian  found  a 
key  in  his  bosom  called  Hope,  wherewith  they 
[  228  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


opened  the  door  of  the  dungeon  and  were  free. 
I  had  no  such  key  that  black  midnight,  but 
mother  found  one  in  her  bosom,  and  set  me  free. 
I  cannot  recall  her  words,  but  this  was  their 
burden,  "  Sorrow  may  endure  for  the  night, 
but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning."  She  was  sure 
we  had  seen  the  worst,  and  now  the  best  was 
waiting.  So  I  began  to  hope  for  the  better  and 
the  best;  and  in  the  morning  I  was  ready  with 
her  help  and  the  help  of  God  to  face  the  grim 
day  and  the  instant  demand. 

My  first-born  son  was  not  with  us  in  the  fire : 
he  was  in  the  country  on  a  visit  to  some  friends, 
but  hurried  home  and  found  us  early  in  the 
morning,  eager  to  help  us.  But  he  was  also  in 
great  trouble,  poor  lad!  He  was  to  have  been 
married  on  the  Tuesday  or  the  Wednesday 
evening  —  I  do  not  quite  remember  —  in  the 
church.  There  was  no  church  now ;  but  the  far 
sorer  trouble  was  his  bride  had  vanished  in  the 
smoke  and  flame  with  her  family,  and  he  could 
hear  no  word  of  what  had  become  of  them. 
They  had  escaped  by  the  lake  when  the  fire 
hemmed  them  in ;  and  this  was  his  joy  and  ours, 
you  may  be  sure.  Still  he  was  heavy  of  heart, 
as  we  were  for  him,  that  there  could  be  no  wed- 
ding. He  had  taken  a  cottage  just  outside  the 
[  229  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


waste  of  burning,  as  we  found,  and  was  in  good 
work  when  business  could  start  up  again.  So 
I  said  to  him,  he  must  be  married  all  the  same 
forthwith.  We  were  not  going  to  break  down, 
but  to  build  up  again,  and  would  stand  shoulder 
to  shoulder.  So  he  must  be  ready  to  be  married 
the  next  day,  and  go  right  away,  after  he  had 
seen  his  sweetheart,  to  hunt  up  the  man  who 
would  issue  the  license.  I  remember  also  how 
eagerly  he  fell  in  with  the  plan  and  made  good 
the  Scripture,  "  Children,  obey  your  parents, 
for  this  is  right,"  found  his  man,  whose  forms 
were  all  burnt ;  but  he  drew  up  the  license  on  a 
sheet  of  paper,  and  they  were  married  on  time. 
We  must  also  have  a  wedding  feast  of  course, 
in  despite  of  the  fire,  which  had  devoured  what 
had  been  prepared ;  and  we  had  the  feast.  Some 
good  friends,  who  had  not  been  burnt  out,  sent 
in  what  they  could  muster,  and  I  went  out  my 
lone  to  find  some  small  luxury  that  would  crown 
the  feast.  It  was  a  forlorn  errand;  for  all 
the  money  I  had  in  the  world  was  some  very 
small  change,  all  the  rest  had  been  given  to  the 
expressman  who  moved  my  books,  that  were 
burned  after  all.  Well,  I  saw  the  luxury  in  the 
window  of  a  small  store.  It  was  a  string  of 
sausage,  and  I  asked  what  they,  were  per  pound. 
[  230  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  had  just  enough  money  for  a  pound,  so  I  gave 
my  order;  but  the  string  weighed  half  a  pound 
over  my  stint,  and  I  told  the  nice,  civil  woman 
the  pound  was  all  I  could  pay  for.  Would  she 
cut  off  the  margin?  She  looked  up  and  asked 
me  if  this  was  not  —  myself?  "Yes,"  I  said. 
And  then  she  asked  me  if  I  remembered  help- 
ing a  poor  family  on  Market  Street  on  a  time, 
but  the  memory  had  gone.  Then  she  said: 
"  You  have  forgotten,  sir ;  but  I  have  not.  I 
will  not  cut  the  string.  Take  them  all,  and 
welcome."  I  think  there  are  times  when  it  is 
more  generous  to  accept  a  gift  than  to  give  one. 
It  would  have  been  a  mean  thing  in  me  to  say  no 
to  that  woman.  So  I  accepted  the  half  pound 
with  courtesy,  and  the  sausage  crowned  the 
feast.  Also  it  was  very  good. 

Then  we  must  find  a  place  for  ourselves  and 
the  children.  The  good  friends  who  had  taken 
us  in  were  straitened  for  room,  mother  said,  and 
must  not  be  burdened  more  than  we  could  help, 
glad  as  they  were  to  have  us  with  them.  We 
did  not  know  where  to  turn  in  the  great  con- 
fusion. The  problem  was  a  hard  one  to  solve ; 
but  it  was  soon  solved  for  us  by  my  dear  friend 
of  many  years,  Charles  W.  Wendte,  now  the 
minister  of  the  Parker  Fraternity  in  Boston, 


SOME  MEMORIES 


but  then  the  minister  of  our  Third  Church  in 
Chicago,  far  away  on  the  South  Side  of  the 
city.  He  came  through  the  burning  waste  of 
the  four  miles  with  a  team,  and  found  us.  I 
could  not  have  done  it;  but  there  he  was,  de- 
lighted to  find  us,  and  take  us  to  his  own  home, 
where  his  good  mother  was  waiting  to  welcome 
us  and  care  for  us  so  long  as  we  would  stay. 
So  we  went  with  him  gladly,  and  there  was  the 
welcome  until  we  found  a  place  to  board  with 
other  friends  through  the  impending  winter. 

We  were  poor  as  Job's  turkey,  as  my  mother 
used  to  say.  We  had  money  in  the  bank,  and 
all  the  banks  were  burned.  But  the  morning 
after  the  wedding  feast  I  found  our  good 
Deacon  Mears  —  or  he  found  me  —  and,  find- 
ing I  was  stranded,  emptied  all  his  pockets  one 
by  one  into  my  hands,  so  that  mother  was  able  to 
make  me  look  decent,  as  she  said;  for  I  was 
what  we  were  used  to  call  "  a  hobject "  in  our 
folk  speech  in  fighting  the  fire.  Then  the  mem- 
ory steals  out  of  my  anxiety  about  our  harried 
and  scattered  flock.  I  wanted  to  find  them,  to 
help  them  if  I  was  able,  and  to  see  what  we 
could  do  who  were  still  the  unburned  church. 
This  was  my  burden,  and  it  was  lifted.  The 
[  232  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


light  shone  for  me  that  had  never  failed  in  the 
most  momentous  moments  of  my  life,  as  I  have 
told  you  before,  and  my  way  was  made  clear.  I 
must  give  notice  in  the  papers,  when  they  began 
to  print  them  again,  that  I  would  meet  my  people 
on  the  space  before  our  church  on  the  Sunday 
morning  at  eleven,  where  we  would  hold  a  religi- 
ous service.  I  found  my  friend  Horace  White, 
the  editor  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  hard  at  work 
preparing  the  first  imprint  after  the  fire,  as  he 
told  me  the  other  day;  and  he  was  glad  to  in- 
sert my  notice,  while  the  result  was  beyond  my 
hope  when  we  came  together, —  a  large  com- 
pany of  our  people,  with  other  friends  and 
many  strangers,  on  the  space  before  the  church. 
A  great  stone  had  fallen  in  just  the  right  place 
for  my  platform,  and  I  had  borrowed  a  Bible 
and  a  hymn-book,  no  doubt,  from  Brother 
Wendte.  The  congregation  had  no  hymn- 
books.  So  I  fell  back  on  our  custom  in  the 
small  chapel  on  the  hill,  when  I  was  a  boy,  and 
deaconed  out  the  hymns  two  lines  at  a  time,  as 
my  father  had  done  before  me. 

Some    members    of    our    choir    were    there 
who  led  the  singing.     There  could  be  but  one 
hymn  to  open  the  services :  — 
[  233  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


"  Before  Jehovah's  awful  throne 
Ye  nations  bow  with  sacred  joy. 
Know  that  the  Lord  is  God  alone; 
He  can  create,  and  he  destroy." 

I  can  hear  them  still  singing  the  great  hymn 
to  the  solemn  Old  Hundred.  The  dear  familiar 
faces  also  come  to  me  out  of  the  mist,  some  bent 
down  and  some  looking  up  to  heaven,  while  the 
tears  ran  down  their  faces.  I  can  never  for- 
get those  moments. 

Then  I  must  read  the  lesson  for  the  morning, 
and  this  touches  a  curious  coincidence  in  our 
human  story.  In  1829,  when  I  was  a  small  boy, 
the  cathedral  in  York  was  set  on  fire  and  sorely 
burned  by  a  fanatic,  as  he  claimed  by  the  com- 
mand of  his  God.  It  is  the  finest  cathedral  in 
England,  as  Yorkshire  men  believed  and  believe 
still, —  so  wonderful  in  its  beauty  that,  when  a 
stern,  dissenting  minister  in  Leeds  would  fain 
go  to  see  it  many  years  ago,  his  son  told  me 
how  his  father  stood  within  the  fane  silent  for 
some  time,  and  then,  lifting  his  hand,  said,  in 
almost  a  whisper,  "  This  might  have  been  done 
by  the  angels." 

Some  time  after  the  fire  my  father  bought  a 
small  chap-book  from  a  pedler  that  contained 
the  story  of  the  fire.  It  was  a  wonder-book  to 
[  234  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


me  when  I  was  able  to  read  it,  so  that  I  de- 
voured every  word;  and,  when  I  wanted  to  find 
a  lesson  for  the  morning,  the  memory  stirred  of 
the  coincidence,  that  on  the  Sunday  after  the 
cathedral  was  burned  the  lesson  appointed  for 
that  morning  in  the  prayer-book,  in  the  time,  I 
think,  of  Edward  VI.,  was  the  sixty-fourth 
chapter  in  Isaiah,  in  which  you  find  these  words, 
"  Our  holy  and  beautiful  house,  where  our 
fathers  praised  thee,  is  burned  with  fire;  and  all 
our  pleasant  things  are  laid  waste." 

When  I  came  to  the  words,  I  had  to  stop,  but 
began  again  and  finished  the  chapter.  A 
prayer  came  after  the  lesson,  and  then  we  sang 
the  beautiful  strain  from  Ivanhoe:  — 

"  When  Israel  of  the  Lord  beloved 

Out  of  the  land  of  bondage  came, 
Her  father's  God  before  her  moved, 
An  awful  guide  in  smoke  and  flame." 

After  the  hymn  I  said  the  words  that  were  in 
my  heart  for  consolation  and  courage,  finding 
both  for  myself  as  I  said  them,  close  of  kin  as 
they  were  to  the  key  mother  found  for  me  that 
night.  Then  I  spoke  about  the  situation,  and 
I  told  them  they  must  pay  me  no  stipend  for  the 
year  to  come.  I  could  take  care  of  my  family, 
[  235  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  this  I  would  do.  Could  go  back  to  the 
anvil  at  a  pinch  and  make  horseshoes,  whereat 
they  smiled,  and  so  did  I.  When  I  was  through 
with  the  address,  William  Clarke,  the  brother 
of  our  noble  preacher  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
offered  the  resolution  that  we  would  go  right 
on  and  rebuild  our  church  as  soon  as  we  were 
able.  The  resolution  was  passed  with  some- 
thing like  a  shout  of  gladness,  and  then  we 
closed  our  services  with  the  doxology  and  the 
benediction,  and  went  wherever  we  had  found  a 
shelter.  I  may  say  now,  in  perfect  sincerity, 
that  my  sole  purpose  that  day  was  to  do  what 
we  had  done,  and  was  quite  content.  I  found 
no  one  was  missing  in  our  flock  or  had  broken 
down,  so  far  as  we  could  hear  from  them,  while 
I  may  say,  before  I  close  this  memory,  that  one 
life  was  saved,  of  a  young  lady  in  our  church 
who  was  wearing  away  before  the  fire  came,  so 
that  there  was  scant  hope  of  her  recovery.  I 
went  to  see  her  about  a  week  before,  and  hardly 
expected  to  see  her  again.  Her  family  were 
unable  to  escape  by  one  of  the  avenues  or  by 
the  lake,  but  got  away  to  the  lake  shore,  where 
they  laid  the  dear  daughter  down  on  the  sands, 
and  were  obliged  to  pour  water  on  her  garments 
to  prevent  their  burning  from  the  falling  em- 
[  236  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


bers;  and  to  our  great  wonder  we  heard  she 
was  recovering.  She  got  quite  well,  married, 
and  had  a  fine  family  of  children. 

I  said  just  now,  my  one  purpose  in  calling 
our  people  together  was  to  do  what  was  done 
that  morning;  but  this  was  not  all.  Reporters 
were  there,  who  telegraphed  what  was  said  and 
done  far  and  wide.  In  the  week  before  the 
meeting  a  telegram  found  me  from  a  young  man 
in  Michigan,  who  said :  "  I  have  sent  you  four- 
teen hundred  loaves  of  bread.  What  shall  I 
send  next  ?  "  The  bread  was  turned  over  to  the 
Aid  and  Relief  Association,  which  was  already 
up  to  the  eyes  in  feeding  the  hungry  multitudes 
that  flocked  to  their  doors.  And  other  mes- 
sages had  come  that  assured  us  the  great,  gen- 
erous heart  of  our  own  people  was  beating  for 
us  and  ours,  and  we  should  not  be  left  stranded. 
Then  within  a  week  after  our  meeting  a  letter 
reached  me  from  a  gentleman  in  Boston,  of 
which  this  was  the  substance :  Do  not  be  troubled 
about  your  stipend  for  the  coming  year.  I  will 
pay  it,  and  enclose  my  check  for  the  first  quar- 
ter. My  stipend  was  five  thousand  dollars. 

And  here  I  will  anticipate  this  time  by,  say, 
a  month,  to  tell  you  about  another  letter  from 
the  Cornell  University,  informing  me  of  a  thou- 
[  237  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


sand  dollars  held  there  for  my  acceptance  if  I 
would  make  a  horseshoe  and  send  it  out  to  the 
writer.  I  had  not  made  one  since  I  left  the  old 
forge  in  England  twenty-one  years  before,  and 
so  I  felt  a  little  dubious  about  my  ability  to 
make  one  now  —  I  mean,  of  course,  then.  But 
a  favorite  saying  of  my  old  mother,  when  she 
could  not  quite  see  her  way  in  some  home  ad- 
venture, was  "  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have." 
So  I  made  up  my  mind  to  try.  My  old  friend 
the  blacksmith,  in  the  wide  lot  near  our  church, 
had  got  his  forge  going,  or  "  agait,"  as  we 
used  to  say.  So  I  went  over  and  showed  him 
the  letter,  and  asked  him  to  lend  me  his  anvil 
and  his  helper.  This  he  was  heartily  glad  to 
do ;  for,  if  I  won  the  prize,  here  was  a  story  to 
tell  as  long  as  he  lived.  The  horseshoe  was 
made,  and,  though  I  say  it,  was  well  made,  and 
won  the  old  man's  approval.  The  convolution 
somewhere  in  the  back  of  my  brain  had  pre- 
served the  tradition  and  directed  every  turn  of 
my  wrist  until  the  job  was  done.  My  name 
was  stamped  on  the  shoe  as  the  maker.  Then  I 
went  to  a  notary,  who  made  out  the  proper  doc- 
ument, signed  and  sealed,  sent  out  with  the 
horseshoe,  and  drew  the  thousand  dollars  with 
fifty  to  boot. 

[  238  ] 


XXIX 

I  told  in  my  last  memory  how  the  morning 
broke  for  us  after  the  night  of  fear,  when  the 
first  telegram  came  from  the  young  man  who 
sent  the  fourteen  hundred  loaves  of  bread,  and 
then  the  letter  about  our  living  through  the 
first  year  which  set  me  free  to  do  whatever  lay 
in  my  power  for  my  own  people  and  wherever  I 
could  lend  a  hand.  It  broke  on  our  wasted  city 
also  in  a  mighty  pulse  of  sympathy  and  succor 
before  the  cry  went  forth  for  help.  The  cry 
came  from  our  own  people  all  over  the  land  and 
from  the  nations  of  kin  to  us  in  the  old  world, 
What  can  we  do  for  you?  While  they  did  not 
wait  for  our  answer,  but  sent  the  help  in  a  vast 
abundance  to  meet  the  instant  demands,  so  that, 
when  the  books  were  made  up,  my  authority 
says,  in  1876,  the  contributions  from  our  own 
people  and  from  abroad  amounted  to  almost 
five  million  dollars  in  money,  besides  the  vast 
bounty  in  food  and  clothing  and  whatever  be- 
sides would  be  of  instant  use  or  worth. 

But  of  this  bounty  I  can  only  make  a  mere 
[  239  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


mention  now,  and  there  is  no  need  for  more.  So 
I  will  touch  the  memories  so  good  to  me  still  of 
what  was  done  for  me  and  mine  by  those  of  our 
own  faith,  mainly  here  and  in  England,  to  re- 
store our  church  and  our  last  home.  It  must 
have  been  in  the  week  after  the  fire  —  say,  ten 
days  —  that  a  telegram  came  from  London  sent 
by  Sir  James  Clarke  Lawrence,  who  went  with 
me  about  his  London  in  May,  saying,  "  Draw 
on  us  for  five  hundred  pounds  for  your  family." 
And  this  I  remember  we  set  aside  as  a  sort  of 
nest-egg  for  the  home  when  we  could  begin  to 
build.  Then  great  consignments  of  provision 
and  clothing  came  to  my  care  from  friends, 
known  and  unknown,  we  turned  over  to  the  as- 
sociation where  the  bread  had  gone.  Mother 
remembered  sixty-five  great  cases  of  this  sort  we 
sent  there,  I  think,  in  one  week.  Money  came 
also  I  must  use  as  seemed  best,  wherewith  I  was 
able  to  help  a  good  number  quietly,  who  could 
not  and  must  not  apply  to  the  Aid  and  Relief 
Association.  This  is  still  a  dear,  good  memory 
you  may  be  sure.  Meanwhile  money  came  to 
help  rebuild  the  church,  and  invitations  from 
St.  Louis,  New  York,  and  Boston,  asking  me  to 
come  and  tell  them  the  story  of  the  fire.  This 
I  was  glad  to  do  and  told  my  story  in  our 
[  240  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


church  in  St.  Louis,  our  Church  of  the  Messiah 
in  New  York,  and  the  Music  Hall  in  Boston. 
And  in  Boston  the  generous  gentleman  who  was 
paying  my  stipend  invited  a  number  of  friends 
to  meet  me  at  his  house  for  conference  touching 
the  restoration  of  the  church.  The  result  in 
Boston  was  the  Unitarian  Association,  with 
Mr.  Shippen  the  secretary,  took  charge  of  the 
subscriptions  there  and  of  those  sent  in  from 
many  of  our  churches  in  New  England,  to  such 
a  grand  purpose  that,  if  my  memory  is  good, 
the  Association  held  seventy  thousand  dollars 
all  told  to  help  us  rebuild,  while  other  sums 
came  directly  to  my  hand  for  the  same  purpose. 
My  dear  friend  of  forty  years  also,  William  H. 
Baldwin,  president  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Union,  was  busy  as  a  whole  hive  of  bees  in  June, 
helping  in  every  way  he  could  imagine.  Then  in 
good  time  our  churches  in.  England  took  a 
hand  in  the  work,  the  men  and  women  and  chil- 
dren in  the  churches  and  the  Sunday-schools  all 
over  the  motherland,  as  they  did  here  in  our 
own  land,  sending  their  offerings  with  letters  of 
heart-whole  S3^mpathy  for  me  and  mine  in  the 
home  and  the  parish,  as  good  or  better  than 
their  gifts,  good  as  these  were.  Now  and  then 
&  letter  would  come  that  made  me  smile.  One 
[  241  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


I  still  remember  from  a  man  in  Michigan,  who 
said  he  understood  I  could  write  a  first-rate 
lecture,  but  my  delivery  was  bad.  I  had  no 
eloquence  or  elocution:  he  had  both,  but  could 
not  write  a  lecture.  So  he  would  make  me  a 
proposition.  If  I  would  write  the  lecture,  he 
would  go  round  and  deliver  it,  and  I  should 
have  half  the  profits.  I  did  not  answer  that 
letter.  Another  contained  a  quarter  of  a  dol- 
lar, with  the  request  that  I  would  send  the  giver 
a  relic  from  the  fire.  I  think  I  returned  the 
quarter  less  two  cents  for  the  stamp,  and 
"  sassed  "  him.  One  made  my  eyes  dim  for  a 
moment.  The  writer  told  me  she  was  a  hired 
girl  and  a  Catholic.  She  had  read  about  the 
services  before  the  burned  church  and  wanted 
to  help  us.  Would  I  accept  the  dollar  she  en- 
closed? and  she  wished  she  could  spare  more. 
It  was  a  rude  hand,  and  the  words  were  rudely, 
spelled;  but  I  think  an  illuminated  missal  could 
not  have  touched  me  as  those  words  touched  me 
or  brought  the  mist  of  tears.  Meanwhile  a 
small  band  did  not  neglect  the  gathering  of  our- 
selves together  when  Sunday  came,  but  soon  be- 
gan to  meet  for  worship  in  a  house  beyond  the 
fire  line,  where  I  spoke  the  words  that  came  to 
me  for  my  own  help  and  theirs.  After  some 


SOME  MEMORIES 


time  also  the  orthodox  church  on  the  next 
corner  from  ours  ran  up  a  frame  building  in 
the  rear  of  their  ruin,  in  which  they  held  serv- 
ices on  the  Sunday  morning  and  evening,  and 
made  us  warmly  welcome  to  hold  ours  there  in 
the  afternoon.  I  think  we  should  have  felt  shy 
about  asking  them,  but  there  was  no  need. 
They  asked  us,  and  meant  it,  with  no  fear  that 
the  place  would  be  tainted  by  our  heresy,  the 
good,  generous  folk  who  were  of  our  kith  and 
kin  after  all.  Then  the  time  came  when  we 
said  we  must  begin  to  rebuild,  about  a  year 
after  the  fire ;  and  the  committee  that  had  built 
before  took  the  work  in  hand,  for  they  were  all 
there  and  all  ready,  and  the  money  was  there  to 
foot  the  bills,  enough,  if  I  remember,  and  it 
might  be  something  over,  so  great  was  the 
bounty  of  those  whose  hearts  were  moved  to 
help  us.  We  could  not  restore  our  church  in 
the  splendor  we  remembered,  and  this  was  not 
our  dream.  The  walls  for  some  space  were  not 
ruined,  or  the  towers;  and  our  good  architect, 
the  best  master-builder  to  my  mind  in  our  city, 
who  had  done  the  work  as  his  free  gift  before, 
was  ready,  busy  man  as  he  was,  to  do  it  again 
on  the  same  old  terms.  He  saw  to  the  walls 
that  they  should  be  well  restored  and  strong  as 


SOME  MEMORIES 


ever;  and  all  things  were  restored,  simple  now, 
but  good  to  the  last  piece  of  woodwork  and  of 
stone.  The  first  floor  was  done  first,  where  we 
gathered  for  the  services  and  the  Sunday- 
school  as  soon  as  they  were  ready;  and  how 
glad  we  were  to  be  there  I  cannot  tell  you ! 
Meanwhile  our  home  was  still  a  ruin  I 
would  glance  at  now  and  then  with  a  sore  heart, 
but  hopeful;  for  we  had  drawn  every  dollar  of 
our  insurance,  to  our  wonder,  and  began  to  see 
our  way  to  a  new  home,  but  not  on  the  old  lot. 
So  that  was  sold  at  a  good  price,  and  another 
bought  quite  to  mother's  mind  and  so  to  mine; 
and  we  also  began  to  build,  but  found  after  a 
while  we  were  not  able  to  finish  it  save  by  a 
heavy  mortgage,  but  from  this  we  were  saved. 
I  had  lectured  now  and  then  in  several  winters 
through  the  Redpath  Bureau  in  Boston,  to  my 
great  satisfaction  and  profit,  but  had  not 
thought  of  doing  this  again  until  after  the 
church  was  dedicated  and  all  things  were  in 
order;  but  now  in  the  strait  about  the  house 
the  bureau  offered  me  work  in  this  kind  through 
a  whole  winter,  if  I  could  take  it  at  prices  I 
had  never  commanded.  So  I  told  my  people 
how  we  stood.  The  work  would  pay  for  the 
home  if  I  would  take  it  in  about  six  months; 
[  244  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and,  if  they  would  give  me  my  time,  my  stipend 
they  had  then  begun  to  pay  should  be  used  for 
the  supply  of  the  pulpit,  and  would  command 
the  best  men  they  could  lay  their  hands  on. 
So  they  voted  me  my  vacation,  and  I  went  into 
the  work  with  all  good  will  from  early  in  No- 
vember, 1872,  to  well  on  in  May,  1873,  lecturing 
from  Belfast  in  Maine  to  far  away  in  Minne- 
sota, and  do  not  remember  missing  an  appoint- 
ment, nor  did  those  who  came  to  hear  me  seem 
to  notice  my  poverty  in  elocution  and  the  like. 
I  would  preach  also  on  the  Sunday  now  and 
then,  and  came  out  at  the  end  of  all  my  labor 
safe  and  sound,  with  money  to  pay  for  the  new 
home  far  more  ample  than  the  one  we  had  lost, 
into  which  we  moved  when  it  was  ready  and 
lived  in  great  content. 

Meanwhile  the  church  was  noving  on  toward 
its  restoration  with  no  break  or  trouble;  and, 
when  it  was  ready  for  the  dedication,  my  dear 
father  in  our  faith,  Dr.  Furness  of  Philadelphia, 
came  out  to  preach  the  sermon  and  give  us  his 
benediction,  being  then  seventy  years  of  age. 
It  was  a  beautiful  service,  as  you  will  know 
who  remember  him,  the  last  of  the  apostles,  as 
I  would  think  when  I  heard  him  who  "  had  seen 
Jesus."  We  were  at  home  again  in  our  church, 
[  245  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


and  it  was  good  to  be  there.  We  had  wept 
over  the  destruction,  and  we  read  in  the  book 
of  Ezra  how  some  wept  over  the  restoration 
of  the  temple  after  the  great  captivity  who  re- 
membered the  glory  of  the  former  house;  but 
I  think  there  was  no  weeping  over  the  glory  we 
remembered  that  Sunday  morning.  My  heart 
had  been  moved  to  attempt  a  hymn  for  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  grand  temple  that  had  gone,  the 
hymn  we  sang  when  we  met  for  our  first  service 
on  our  return  home,  as  I  told  you;  and,  when 
the  time  drew  near  for  this  dedication,  I  was 
moved  to  attempt  another  I  will  transcribe  from 
my  memory: — 

O  Lord  our  God,  when  storm  and  flame 
Hurled  homes  and  temples  into  dust, 

.We  gathered  here  to  bless  thy  name, 
And  on  our  ruin  wrote  our  trust. 

Thy  tender  pity  met  our  pain ; 

Swift  through  the  world  thine  angels  ran ; 
And  then  thy  Christ  appeared  again, 

Incarnate,  in  the  heart  of  man. 

Thy  lightning  lent  its  burning  wing 
To  bear  the  tear-blent  sympathy, 

And  fiery  chariots  rushed  to  bring 
The  offerings  of  humanity. 
[  246  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


Thy  tender  pity  met  our  pain, 

Thy  love  has  raised  us  from  the  dust; 

We  meet  to  bless  thee,  Lord,  again, 
And  in  our  temple  sing  our  trust. 

There  was  only  one  strain  I  could  think  of  for 
the  hymn :  it  was  again  the  grand  Old  Hundred. 
One  more  memory  I  must  touch  of  those  books 
the  dear  friend  would  fain  save  for  us  when  she 
felt  sure  their  home  would  be  saved,  .but  they 
were  burned  with  the  home.  They  were  all 
about  our  home  county,  of  York,  and  most 
precious  to  me  for  that  reason.  Another  good 
woman,  a  writer,  saw  me  in  the  stress  of  my 
trouble,  and  made  a  note  of  it  for  a  letter  she 
would  write,  I  think  it  was  for  our  New  York 
Tribune.  Some  word  of  it  must  have  gone  to 
London,  for  a  letter  came  from  there  asking 
me  if  I  could  remember  the  titles  of  those  books. 
Well,  I  could  not  forget  them :  they  were  graven, 
shall  I  say?  on  my  heart.  And  then,  just  about 
the  time  we  were  rejoicing  in  our  new  home, 
what  should  come  to  crown  my  joy  but  all  the 
volumes  I  had  lost,  with  a  good  many  more 
I  had  never  hoped  to  have  for  my  very  own. 
And  here  they  are  now  all  about  me  as  I  write 
this  memory,  the  gift  of  Sir  Edwin  Lawrence, 
the  brother  to  Sir  James  of  blessed  memory. 
[  247  ] 


SOME  MEMORIES 


He  had  heard  or  read  of  the  incident  and  sent 
for  the  catalogue,  so  I  was  rich  again  beyond 
my  hopes  and  fears. 

And  now  I  must  say  farewell  in  this  final 
memor;  to  the  friends  I  cannot  name  here  and 
over  the  sea.  It  has  been  a  pleasant  task  for 
me  to  write  them,  sweet  as  they  are  or  bitter, 
or  bitter  sweet,  as  they  would  steal  out  from 
the  mists  of  the  many  years.  The  good 
Bishop  Horn  says,  "  Wormwood  eaten  with 
bread  is  not  bitter";  and  these  are  all  blended 
for  me  now  with  the  bread  of  life  of  my  child- 
hood, my  youth,  and  my  manhood  through 
the  fifty  years  all  told  when  they  close. 
Thirty-two  years  more  have  come  and  gone 
since  then;  but  of  these  I  cannot  tell  you  now 
(and  "  cannot "  means  "  need  not "  to  me), 
as  I  glance  toward  my  sun's  setting  and  remem- 
ber the  saying,  "  The  young  may  die  soon,  but 
the  old  must."  Still  I  am  glad  to  stay  so  long 
as  I  may,  while  in  some  rare  moments  I  must 
confess  I  feel  some  touch  of  eagerness  to  go 
when  I  am  held  captive  by  the  vision  of  my 
beloved  waiting  for  me,  my  very  own  and  so 
many  more  where  mortality  is  swallowed  up  of 
life. 

[  248  ] 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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